Universities and the Public Sphere : Knowledge Creation and State Building in the Era of Globalization 2011003453, 9780415878470, 9780203847848

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STUDIES IN

CA TIO N

INTERN

ATIO N

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U HIGHER ED

Universities and the Public Sphere Knowledge Creation and State Building in the Era of Globalization

EDITED BY

BRIAN PUSSER, KEN KEMPNER, SIMON MARGINSON, AND IMANOL ORDORIKA

Universities and the Public Sphere

Universities have been propelled into the center of the global political economy of knowledge production by a number of factors: mass education, academic capitalism, the globalization of knowledge, the democratization of communication in the era of the Internet, and the emergence of the knowledge and innovation economy. The latest book in the International Studies in Higher Education series, Universities and the Public Sphere addresses the vital role of research universities as global public spheres, sites where public interaction, conversation, and deliberation take place, where the nature of the State and private interests can be openly debated and contested. At a time of increased privatization, open markets, and government involvement in higher education, the book also addresses the challenges facing the university in its role as a global public sphere. In this volume, international contributors challenge prevalent views of the global marketplace to create a deeper understanding of higher education’s role in knowledge creation and nation building. In nearly every national context, the pressures of globalization, neoliberal economic restructuring, and new managerial imperatives challenge traditional norms of autonomy, academic freedom, access, and affordability. The authors in Universities and the Public Sphere argue that universities are uniquely suited to have transformative democratic potential as global public spheres. Brian Pusser is Associate Professor of Higher Education in the Center for the Study of Higher Education, Curry School of Education, University of Virginia. Ken Kempner is Professor of Education and International Studies and former Dean of Social Sciences at Southern Oregon University. Simon Marginson is Professor of Higher Education in the Centre for the Study of Higher Education at the University of Melbourne. Imanol Ordorika is a Professor at the Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.

International Studies in Higher Education Series Editors:

David Palfreyman, OxCHEPS Ted Tapper, OxCHEPS Scott Thomas, Claremont Graduate University

The central purpose of this series is to see how different national and regional systems of higher education are responding to widely shared pressures for change. The most significant of these are rapid expansion, reducing public funding, the increasing influence of market and global forces, and the widespread political desire to integrate higher education more closely into the wider needs of society and, more especially, the demands of the economic structure. The series will commence with an international overview of structural change in systems of higher education. It will then proceed to examine on a global front the change process in terms of topics that are both traditional (for example, institutional management and system governance) and emerging (for example, the growing influence of international organizations and the blending of academic and professional roles). At its conclusion the series will have presented, through an international perspective, both a composite overview of contemporary systems of higher education and the competing interpretations of the process of change. Published titles: Structuring Mass Higher Education The Role of Elite Institutions Edited by David Palfreyman and Ted Tapper International Perspectives on the Governance of Higher Education Steering, Policy Processes, and Outcomes Edited by Jeroen Huisman International Organizations and Higher Education Policy Thinking Globally, Acting Locally? Edited by Roberta Malee Bassett and Alma Maldonado

Academic and Professional Identities in Higher Education The Challenges of a Diversifying Workforce Edited by Celia Whitchurch and George Gordon International Research Collaborations Much to Be Gained, Many Ways to Get in Trouble Melissa S. Anderson and Nicholas H. Steneck Cross-border Partnerships in Higher Education Strategies and Issues Robin Sakamoto and David Chapman Accountability in Higher Education Global Perspectives on Trust and Power Bjorn Stensaker and Lee Harvey The Engaged University International Perspectives on Civic Engagement David Watson, Susan E. Stroud, Robert Hollister, and Elizabeth Babcock Universities and the Public Sphere Knowledge Creation and State Building in the Era of Globalization Edited by Brian Pusser, Ken Kempner, Simon Marginson, and Imanol Ordorika

Universities and the Public Sphere

Knowledge Creation and State Building in the Era of Globalization Edited by Brian Pusser, Ken Kempner, Simon Marginson, and Imanol Ordorika

First published 2012 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Simultaneously published in the UK by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2012 Taylor & Francis The right of Brian Pusser, Ken Kempner, Simon Marginson, and Imanol Ordorika to be identified as authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Universities and the public sphere / edited by Brian Pusser … [et al.].     p. cm. — (International studies in higher education) ­   Includes bibliographical references and index.    1. Education, Higher—Economic aspects—Cross-cultural studies.    2. Education and globalization—Cross-cultural studies.    3. Privatization in education—Cross-cultural studies.    4. Critical pedagogy. 5. Neoliberalism. I. Pusser, Brian.   LC67.6.U57 2011   2011003453   338.4´3378—dc22 ISBN: 978-0-415-87847-0 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-203-84784-8 (ebk) Typeset in Minion by HWA Text and Data Management, London Printed in the USA

Contents

List of Illustrations Series Editors’ Introduction Acknowledgments 1

Introduction and Overview of the Book

ix xi xiv 1

Brian Pusser, Ken Kempner, Simon Marginson, and Imanol Ordorika

2

The “Public” Contribution of Universities in an Increasingly Global World



Simon Marginson

3

Power and Authority in the Creation of a Public Sphere Through Higher Education



Brian Pusser

4

The Global Sorting Machine: An Examination of Neoracism Among International Students and Postdoctoral Researchers



Jenny J. Lee and Brendan Cantwell

5

Reconsidering the Realities of the International Student Market: A Perspective from Japan and East Asia



Akiyoshi Yonezawa and Hugo Horta

6

University Rankings, Global Models, and Emerging Hegemony: Critical Analysis from Japan



Mayumi Ishikawa

7

27

47

65

81

vii

viii  •  Contents

7

The Corporatization of National Universities in Finland



Jussi Välimaa

8

Negotiating Race and Gender Identity in the Knowledge Age: The Case of South African Universities



Reitumetse Obakeng Mabokela

9

The Broken Promise of Neoliberal Restructuring of South African Higher Education



Ivor Baatjes, Carol Anne Spreen, and Salim Vally

10

Higher Education and the Public Sphere in Angola



Ken Kempner and Ana Jurema

11

Selling Out Academia? Higher Education, Economic Crises, and Freire’s Generative Themes

101

121

139 159

179

Greg William Misiaszek, Lauren Ila Jones, and Carlos Alberto Torres

12

Post-Neoliberalism: The Professional Identity of Faculty Off the Tenure Track



John S. Levin, Genevieve Shaker, and Richard Wagoner

13

The Chameleon’s Agenda: Entrepreneurial Adaptation of Private Higher Education in Mexico



Roberto Rodríguez Gómez and Imanol Ordorika

List of Contributors Index

197

219 243 247

Illustrations

Tables 5.1 7.1 12.1 13.1 13.2 13.3

Study and work experience abroad during and after five years of study among university graduates The number of the most relevant words found in the Act and the background memos of the Universities Act 558/2009 University faculty in U.S. Examples of private regional higher education systems in Mexico Enrollment and undergraduate programs accreditation in selected private universities, 2008–2009 Enrollment and undergraduate programs accreditation by institutional type in public and private sectors 2008–2009

77 110 202 233 234 236

Figures 11.1 13.1

Generative themes Higher education enrollment growth in Mexico

187 227

ix

Series Editors’ Introduction International Studies in Higher Education

This Series is constructed around the premise that higher education systems are experiencing common pressures for fundamental change, reinforced by differing national and regional circumstances that also impact upon established institutional structures and procedures. There are four major dynamics for change that are of international significance: 1. Mass higher education is a universal phenomenon. 2. National systems find themselves located in an increasingly global marketplace that has particular significance for their more prestigious institutions. 3. Higher education institutions have acquired (or been obliged to acquire) a wider range of obligations, often under pressure from governments prepared to use state power to secure their policy goals. 4. The balance between the public and private financing of higher education has shifted—markedly in some cases—in favour of the latter. Although higher education systems in all regions and nation states face their own particular pressures for change, these are especially severe in some cases: the collapse of the established economic and political structures of the former Soviet Union along with Central and Eastern Europe, the political revolution in South Africa, the pressures for economic development in India and China, and demographic pressure in Latin America. Each volume in the Series will examine how systems of higher education are responding to this new and demanding political and socio-economic environment. Although it is easy to overstate the uniqueness of the present situation, it is not an exaggeration to say that higher education is undergoing a fundamental shift in its character, and one that is truly international in scope. We are witnessing a major transition in the relationship of higher education to state and society. What makes the present circumstances particularly interesting is to see how different systems—a product of social, cultural, economic and political contexts that have interacted and evolved over time—respond in their xi

xii  •  Series Introduction own peculiar ways to the changing environment. There is no assumption that the pressures for change have set in motion the trend towards a converging model of higher education, but we do believe that in the present circumstances no understanding of ‘the idea of the university’ remains sacrosanct. Although this is a Series with an international focus it is not expected that each individual volume should cover every national system of higher education. This would be an impossible task. Whilst aiming for a broad range of case studies, with each volume addressing a particular theme, the focus will be upon the most important and interesting examples of responses to the pressures for change. Most of the individual volumes will bring together a range of comparative quantitative and qualitative information, but the primary aim of each volume will be to present differing interpretations of critical developments in key aspects of the experience of higher education. The dominant overarching objective is to explore the conflict of ideas and the political struggles that inevitably surround any significant policy development in higher education. It can be expected that volume editors and their authors will adopt their own interpretations to explain the emerging patterns of development. There will be conflicting theoretical positions drawn from the multi-disciplinary, and increasingly inter-disciplinary, field of higher education research. Thus we can expect in most volumes to find an inter-marriage of approaches drawn from sociology, economics, history, political science, cultural studies, and the administrative sciences. However, whilst there will be different approaches to understanding the process of change in higher education, each volume editor(s) will impose a framework upon the volume inasmuch as chapter authors will be required to address common issues and concerns. The impressive team of Brian Pusser, Ken Kempner, Simon Marginson, and Imanol Ordorika edits this volume in the Series. Our 10th volume represents one of the most internationally representative treatments in the Series. It offers an intellectually rigorous analysis of the effects of neoliberal restructuring policies on the university and assesses the degree to which these policies are influencing the university’s role in defining the public sphere. The volume is organized around three objectives: 1) to revisit the important public purposes of the university and the neoliberal models that have emerged as part of a flattening world, 2) to evaluate the impact of neoliberal restructuring across several national settings, and 3) to interrogate the intent of these neoliberal market transformations. Habermas’s notion of the “public sphere” forms the baseline for the analysis of neoliberal influences on the university. At the core of their analysis, the chapter authors unpack the degree to which the globalisation of knowledge and attempts by neoliberal policymakers and corporate interests has eroded the transformative democratic potential of the university. Through the chapters in the volume, the editors evidence the importance of the university’s role in the public sphere and develop a case for the preservation of its relative autonomy

Series Introduction  •  xiii

in the face of market forces. These market forces are part and parcel of the national contexts developed by the chapter authors, contexts that include the pressures of globalisation, neoliberal economic restructuring, and new managerial imperatives that challenge the university’s traditional norms of autonomy, academic freedom, access and affordability. As with previous volumes in the Series, the above issues are located in different theoretical contexts. Its editors and authors have attempted to establish a dialogue between theory and praxis in order to further our understanding of the internationalisation of higher education and, more especially, the role of international organizations in that process. At its best, this is what the study of higher education attempts to achieve and we believe the editors and the authors of this volume deliver a most trenchant example. David Palfreyman Director of OxCHEPS, New College, University of Oxford Ted Tapper OxCHEPS, New College, University of Oxford and CHEMPAS, University of Southampton Scott L. Thomas Professor of Educational Studies, Claremont Graduate University, California

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Rebecca H. Foster for her thoughtful contributions and scrupulous attention to detail. We also wish to thank Scott L. Thomas for his support of this project from its inception and to acknowledge Alex Masulis for his editorial stewardship.

1

Introduction and Overview of the Book

Brian Pusser, Ken Kempner, Simon Marginson, and Imanol Ordorika

After some three decades of efforts to impose neoliberal restructuring policies on universities around the world, it is a propitious time to revisit the models, evaluate national cases, and assess the intent of neoliberal market transformation. It is also time to ask, based on the emerging challenges considered in this volume in national contexts as distinct as Japan, South Africa, and the United States, “What has the neoliberal project wrought?” As calls for the globalization of the higher education arena around such organizing principles as competitive resource allocation, standardized managerial regimes of quality and accountability, and the private exchange value of postsecondary education, we turn attention to the future of knowledge production, to the university’s role in creating public goods, social justice, and a more egalitarian society. To that end, we also consider the prospects for creating and preserving a public sphere through higher education, so that universities may serve as sites for discovery, discussion, and critique of even the most powerful forces and interests in contemporary society. Because universities are a precious and often scarce national and international resource, the contemporary structural transformation of global higher education is a shared and interdependent concern of scholars, policy makers, and the broad array of constituents of postsecondary education. In this volume, we focus on three issues of paramount importance for understanding the emerging landscape of higher education: the process of globalization, neoliberal policies shaping higher education, and the reduction of autonomous, critical, discursive, and emancipatory postsecondary space. 1

2  •  Pusser, Kempner, Marginson, and Ordorika Despite the varied and diverse character of the many nations and regions of the earth, across contexts certain strategies, values, and demands appear again and again on the contemporary scene: exhortations to produce higher education with fewer public resources; calls for greater accountability, efficiency, and productivity; the privileging of applied research in service of economic development, including the focus on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields as the highest value disciplines; the move to a contingent and de-professionalized academic workforce; and above all else, the need to train individuals to compete in something called a global knowledge economy. What is clear amid this din is that powerful forces are contending for control of universities and their functions in ways that have not been seen in many centuries. What is unclear, and yet vitally in need of clarification, is where these demands originate, whose interests they serve, how they comport with historical understandings of the role of higher education in society, how they affect equity and social justice, and whether they allow for the university to continue its slow evolution into an autonomous site of contests over knowledge creation, critique, and teaching in the public interest. This is not to suggest that the authors represented in this volume agree on the interpretation of such complex and contested phenomena as globalization, neoliberalism, and understandings of public and private as organizing frames or on the relationship between knowledge and the economy. As editors, we hope a strength of this book is that there is much on which the authors disagree. This is what we strive for in assembling independent-minded scholars from various national contexts. The authors here might reasonably disagree on the limits of globalization, the ultimate utility of technology, or the utility of private action in service of public purposes. However, it is fair to say there is agreement on one point that pervades this volume: universities have an essential role to play as independent arbitrators of each of these essential questions, to serve as a public sphere through higher education. We do not argue that universities are now, or have historically been, unfettered, independent sources of discussion, critique, and contest. It may be only that they have done this to a greater degree than other major forms of public and private organization. What we argue is that they have the potential to become such sites and the obligation to strive to achieve that status in service of the public good. The notion of the public sphere originates from the discussion of eighteenth-century London by Jurgen Habermas (1962). The public sphere was the interlocking set of institutions, networks, and activities sustained in independent civil society, at once beyond the nation-state and transactions in the market while intersecting with them at many points. It was found in dining establishments, in salons and clubs, in theaters and writers’ festivals and in universities—all the places where people met and talked—and in

Introduction and Overview of the Book  •  3

the plethora of civil organizations that focus on changing common opinion or behaviors. The public sphere was sometimes critical of the State, and sometimes provided crucial ideas and support for State projects. Above all, it was a forum for critical intelligence and creative discussion about the issues of the day and, alongside family, community, market, and nationstate, it was one of the media in which social solidarity was formed. Craig Calhoun (1992) has described Habermas’s vision of the public sphere as “an institutional location for practical reason in public affairs and for the accompanying valid, if often deceptive, claims of formal democracy” (p. 1). Habermas’s concept has many contemporary resonances (Calhoun, 1992; Marginson, 2006; Pusser, 2006). Arguably, the single research university serves to some degree as public sphere for its own local and city communities, particularly in constituting an independent civil space for political debate and critical ideas about social organization. The Internet, with its blogs, social networking, and popular websites focused on politics and public affairs, is a more instantaneous version of the same interactive process that Habermas discussed, as it forms the first worldwide communicative system. Arguably, we are seeing the formation of a new global public space or civil society, constituted by the open flows of knowledge and information, in which the worldwide network of research universities plays a central role. This is taking the form of a global public sphere. Open global exchange protects independent voices, enabling communication outside the control of particular nation-states (despite the efforts by some to limit Internet access). As Clark Kerr (2001) anticipated in 1963, universities are essential because of their key roles in creating new knowledge, and the codification of that knowledge, in economies, societies, and modernist cultures (Kerr 2001). In contrast with Kerr’s time, this role is now exercised globally. It is striking that of all the agents and networks that now constitute global communicative relations, universities—for all their limitations—are perhaps the most open and intellectually free and the least consistently constrained by particular interests, including national interests. Although elements of our argument are found in some scholarly books, the purpose of this edited volume is to provide an integrated text serving as a compendium of perspectives from international scholars. Their work extends scholarship beyond simplistic arguments of the global marketplace to inform a larger understanding of higher education’s role in knowledge creation and State building. Though the role of the State in constructing institutions and systems has gained recent attention (Altbach & Balán, 2007), the role of universities in various national contexts in building, sustaining, and transforming their respective States has been infrequently addressed (Ordorika & Pusser, 2007). In this volume, we turn considerable attention to the interaction between universities and States as we argue that in addition to its contributions to building legal and civil systems and the

4  •  Pusser, Kempner, Marginson, and Ordorika development of professional capacity for the State, in its role as a public sphere the university offers an essential site for analysis and critique of the State and State functions. Taken together, the perspectives presented here argue that not only is the potential to serve as an essential public sphere inherent in the university, but it also is the university’s position as a site of critique and relatively unfettered knowledge production that enables it to create a wide range of public goods that are essential to the public welfare. The ability of the university to generate essential public goods, however, is under considerable pressure from a wide array of emerging demands in the global political economy, many of which are the subject of analysis in this volume. In the opening chapter, Simon Marginson turns attention to status competition as a fundamental driver of postsecondary transformation, one that may well have become a more pervasive force than market restructuring across the globe. Brian Pusser seeks to define the ideal set of conditions for the creation and preservation of a public sphere through higher education and to deconstruct the forces that limit that ideal state. In the process, he turns attention to the oftneglected role of social actors and the civil society in shaping postsecondary possibilities. In the same way, Greg Misiaszek, Lauren Jones, and Carlos Torres apply Freirean generative themes to an analysis of contemporary State resource allocation policies and economic crisis in pursuit of alternatives to neoliberal strategies. The tension between the global and the local is a central tension that emerges from the cases presented here, as Ken Kempner and Ana Jurema demonstrate through their analysis of the ways in which globalization shapes workforce development through postsecondary education in Angola and the implications for social mobility as a public good. Akiyoshi Yonezawa and Hugo Horta contrast the emerging competitive processes shaping global student mobility with Japan’s distinctive approach to attracting and educating international students. Their analysis suggests a space for competitiveness and distinctiveness that challenges the rhetoric of global standardization as the driver of success. Jussi Välimaa evaluates the impact of globalized narratives of “world-class” postsecondary characteristics with national cultural norms of postsecondary organization, through an examination of the corporatization of higher education in Finland. In the process, he turns attention to the discourse of globalization as a persistent challenge that threatens longstanding State norms and cultural understandings of the benefits of higher education. Similarly, Mayumi Ishikawa analyzes the hegemonic impact of global ranking systems on the Japanese postsecondary system, presenting a striking case of powerful global status hierarchies clashing with deeply embedded national norms. Imanol Ordorika and Roberto Rodríguez Gómez focus on globalization and neoliberal policies as drivers of adaptation in Mexico, where public universities have adopted the

Introduction and Overview of the Book  •  5

discourse and practices of privatization. At the same time, private universities have also adapted new strategies for differentiation, suggesting the need for a more complex and nuanced approach to understanding the ways in which global demands shape local and national transformations. Perhaps the most startling clash of neoliberal economic policies and State purposes is evidenced in the case of contemporary South Africa. Ivor Baatjes, Carol Anne Spreen, and Salim Vally illuminate the stark contrast between the local and national demands for postapartheid re-invention of the postsecondary system and the pressure of supranational resource allocation practices and accountability regimes. The South African case serves as a powerful reminder of the continuing neoliberal challenge to State building through higher education, a hegemonic force so intense that it threatens norms of equity and social justice forged out of one of the most visible and celebrated liberation struggles in modern history. Alongside the impact of market restructuring, globalization, and neoliberal policies on States and institutions, several of the authors here turn attention to the personal realm: the effects on students and professionals in higher education. Jenny Lee and Brendan Cantwell point to the inability of neoliberal policies and market models to redress the various forms of persistent bias in the selection and assignment of international graduate students. Reitumetse Obakeng Mabokela also turns attention to powerful and persistent disparities in hiring, promotion, and levels of authority for women and people of color in postapartheid South Africa and in global higher education. In each case, the authors point to the need to shelter efforts to implement equitable and just policies to shape individual lives and careers from emerging global norms of university organization. In their analysis of the relationship between globalization and the academic workforce, John Levin, Genevieve Shaker, and Richard Wagoner point to systemic disparities in the impact on local professionals from global demands and neoliberal adjustment policies. At the same time, the authors envision a space for resistance and reconstruction, based in a commitment to craft and the reconstruction of professional identity. Taken together, the chapters in this volume suggest that the imposition of neoliberal policies in the name of globalization and market competitiveness have not shaped universities in ways as democratic or self-regulating as neoliberal scholars and policy makers have presumed. These findings, in combination with the devastating collapse of global capital markets in 2008, give us reason to question the foundation of arguments for the globalized and neoliberal university. If market-competitive strategies and a university built around economic development and prestige competition are not sustainable, what then is the appropriate vision for the contemporary university across national contexts? The authors assembled here remind us of the essential values that have sustained the legitimacy of the postsecondary project since

6  •  Pusser, Kempner, Marginson, and Ordorika its inception. We stress values here, as opposed to strategies or policies. It can be reasonably argued that the rise of neoliberal models of postsecondary provision throughout the world has been abetted by placing value, in the economic sense, over values as a moral compass. That is, the arguments for reducing State support, for eliminating patterns of historical cross-subsidy in favor of concentrating resources on what Slaughter and Rhoades (2004) have termed “close to the market disciplines,” and for privileging elite student preparation over universal access are decisions made with ends, rather than means, foremost. A central message of this volume is that in higher education, to a greater degree than in many other arenas, process and production cannot be separated. Though a fundamental postsecondary commitment to equity, to discovery and critique, and to individual and community development makes economic growth and social mobility possible, the neoliberal project has demonstrated that strategies that begin with privileging the economic and private benefits of higher education not only fail to ensure equity and community success but also may come at the expense of those core goals. We conclude that universities have a major and transformative democratic potential at the global level, though one as yet largely unfulfilled.

References Altbach, P. G., & Balán J. (Eds.) (2007). World class worldwide: Transforming research universities in Asia and Latin America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Calhoun, C. (1992). Introduction: Habermas and the public sphere. In C. Calhoun (Ed.), Habermas and the public sphere. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Habermas, J. (1962). The structural transformation of the public sphere. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Kerr, C. (2001). The uses of the university (5th ed.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Marginson, S. (2006). Putting “public” back in the public university. Thesis Eleven, 84, 44–59. Ordorika, I., & Pusser, B. (2007). La máxima casa de estudios: The Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México as a state-building university. In P. G. Altbach & J. Balán (Eds.), World class worldwide: Transforming research universities in Asia and Latin America (pp. 189–215). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Pusser, B. (2006). Reconsidering higher education and the public good: The role of public spheres. In W. G. Tierney (Ed.), Governance and the public good. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Slaughter, S., & Rhoades, G. (2004). Academic capitalism and the new economy. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

2

The “Public” Contribution of Universities in an Increasingly Global World

Simon Marginson

Introduction In 1529, the great monasteries of England and the nearly 400 parallel but smaller establishments had never looked so good. They were doubly protected, by universal belief and by a multitude of material connections into English society, the economy, politics, and the court, which made them necessary to daily life. Monasteries were centers of farming and craft production and the source of community welfare. They were way stations for travelers across the land. They provided valued careers for younger sons. Cathedrals loomed over the landscape. Holders of vast wealth and power, the monasteries could not be touched. Ten years later, in 1539, a bill for the confiscation of the large monasteries passed through parliament. By then they were already gone, their plate and jewels seized by the Crown, their personnel forcibly expelled, furniture and hangings left for pillage or rot, and much of the massive stonework dismantled for local building. The smaller establishments had been dissolved by statute three years earlier (Brigden, 2002). And to the surprise of some contemporaries, life went on. The fires of hell failed to swallow up Thomas Cromwell and Henry VIII’s inquest into the monasteries. The king soon squandered his new wealth in an unsuccessful war in France. Like other European countries, the French still had their cathedrals and religious houses, but the English never brought them back. They found more modest ways to worship and believe. They created other forms of charity. They became cynical about other kinds of corrupt local authority. Somebody new made the wine. 7

8  •  Simon Marginson

It had all happened before, in a more university-like setting. In the fourth and fifth centuries CE, Buddhism moved from India via Central Asia to China. It flourished under the Tang dynasty that arose in the next century. Buddhism became the great modernizer across East Asia, triggering an amazing flourishing of science and technology, philosophy, scholarship, and the arts. It was, in effect, the state religion of China. Then it turned inward, contemplating its own heart, and asked the eternal question: Why don’t we grab more power, more status, and more resources for ourselves? The Buddhist churches accumulated great wealth and property and held a monopoly of metals. In 842 CE, the impossible happened. All foreign religions were proscribed; China went xenophobic. However, it gained, it seems, by immolating diversity. The Buddhist churches were closed, the priests and nuns defrocked, and all the wealth was seized (Gernet, 1982). And the learning stopped. The moral of the story is that nothing lasts forever. Every so often, nationstates and societies discover they can live without the institutions they have inherited. When these institutions stand for nothing more, nothing deeper or more collective, no greater public good than the aggregation of selfinterest—like the monasteries in China and England, that accumulated vast social resources but came to exist only for themselves and those who used them—then the institutions are vulnerable. Self-interest can be channeled in many other ways. The institutions disappear and their functions are picked up elsewhere. Universities are not monasteries, but other agencies could issue certificates for work, for a fee. Research could be run from corporate or government laboratories. Scholars and humanists could be sent back to private life to finance their activities themselves. Students who want real knowledge could buy e-books. New ideas could be sourced from civil society, the business world, and the communicative space, as they were in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe and they are from the Internet today. What greater good would be lost if universities closed? If higher education is emptied out of public purpose, its survival is no longer certain. Higher education institutions need a larger purpose that underpins their existence. This purpose is more than a marketing slogan. It is also something more than the survival of the university or knowledge or students or learning for its own sake. Since their beginnings, universities and university-like institutions have rested on an antinomy of two heterogeneous elements, both of which are essential. The first element is place-bound identity, locality. Universities are embedded in communities, cities, and nations and, in Europe, in a global region. The second element is universal-mobile knowledge. Universities are soaked in transmitting, studying, and creating knowledge and are part of a larger network of institutions that do this, a network that has always

The “Public” Contribution of Universities  •  9

been international. Knowledge is the unique claim of higher education. It is at the core of every public and private good that is created in the sector. However, the knowledge functions in themselves are not enough to embed the institutions in locality. Higher education needs a rationale that grounds its continuing knowledge-related functions in real locality—that connects the two parts of its foundational antinomy. This rationale must embody deeply felt common values. So it all turns on this question of public good and public goods. The Chapter What is “public” in universities? What could be “public” about them? And what should be “public” about them? When defined in solely ideological terms, public versus private is clear and simple, but more than ideology is entailed. There is also more to “public” higher education than “not private” or “nonmarket” or state-owned institutions or state-sourced financing. A more generative approach to “public” is to think about it in terms of the social or political effects of higher education—for example, its contribution to the agency of self-determining citizens. Some such public purposes can be achieved in privately owned institutions (just as certain private benefits are created in state-owned institutions), though on the whole, publicly owned institutions are more open to democratic policy intervention and more likely to pursue a collective agenda (Marginson, 2007). This chapter does some conceptual spadework in relation to “publicness” in higher education in national and global settings. The first part discusses the different notions of public goods (plural), the public good (singular), and the public sphere. The second part considers the conditions that practices of “public” must deal with, including other imaginaries that shape higher education, and the politics of the sector. The third part considers how public higher education is. Without a consensus on “public” and the necessary empirical data, conclusions are preliminary. The final part considers how a democratic publicness might be advanced.1

What Is “Public” in Higher Education? The notion of “public goods” (plural) derives from economics and is objectivist and empirical in form. The distinction between public and private, articulated by Paul Samuelson (1954), is grounded in the character of the goods. The notion of the “public good” (singular) is more normative, more collective in orientation, more eclectic, and the subject of many literatures and claims. The specific notion of the “public sphere” was first discussed by Jurgen Habermas (1989) as a form of civil and communicative association in eighteenth-century England.

10  •  Simon Marginson

Public Goods (Plural) Samuelson (1954) defines public goods2 as nonrivalrous and nonexcludable. Goods are nonrivalrous when they can be consumed by any number of people without being depleted—for example, knowledge of a mathematical theorem. Goods are nonexcludable when the benefits cannot be confined to individual buyers, such as social tolerance or law and order. Few goods are both fully nonrivalrous and fully nonexcludable, but many have one or other quality in part or full. Goods with neither quality are classified as fully private goods. In common with most card-carrying members of the American economic profession, Samuelson has a prima facie bias in favor of economic markets. He sees goods as open to private ownership and full market production unless they have special qualities that prevent this. Public and part-public goods are a residual concept, goods underprovided in markets. It is unprofitable to pay for goods that can be acquired free as the result of someone else’s purchase and unprofitable to make goods available for no cost. Hence, there is a case for state and/or philanthropic financing of public goods, and possibly also provision, to ensure the desired quantity— though “the desired quantity” raises normative issues. For example, how much educational equality is desired? How many social resources should be allocated to this, given other objectives? Public goods can take individual or collective forms. An example of a collective good is clean air or an education system that provides equality of opportunity. An example of an individual good is the externalities created when a new educated worker enters the workplace. The worker’s educated attributes (knowledge and skills) may spill over to other workers who did not contribute to the cost of the education, helping to enhance their productivity and thereby augment the economic returns to the firm. “Human capital” can become embodied in public as well as private goods. Likewise Amartya Sen (2000) notes that human “capabilities” contribute to both individual and collective goods. The most important public goods produced in higher education are universal knowledge and information. Knowledge is almost a pure public good, as Joseph Stiglitz (1999) notes. Once disseminated, it is nonrivalrous (though particular artifacts embodying knowledge can be rivalrous and excludable). Thus, basic research is government funded. Knowledge is also a global public good. The mathematical theorem retains its value all over the world no matter how many times it is used. Kaul, Grunberg, and Stern (1999) define global public goods thus: Global public goods are goods that have a significant element of non-rivalry and/or non-excludability and are made broadly available across populations on a global scale. They affect more than one group of countries, are broadly available within countries, and are inter-

The “Public” Contribution of Universities  •  11

generational; that is, they meet needs in the present generation without jeopardizing future generations. (pp. 2–3) Universal knowledge and human mobility are synonymous in their reach across the world. Both are possessed in common—often by the same persons—and practiced in networked global relations. Not all persons possess them. Knowledge and ease of mobility have always been largely monopolized by the social and scholarly elites. Modernization expands the circle of beneficiaries, a process that is quickened by global convergence. This is the democratizing potential of globalization and global higher education: reflexive human agency spreads outward within a thickening world society. Nevertheless, public goods in Samuelson’s sense are open to contestation. More than one ecology or knowledge or universal language is possible. The fact that knowledge in the technical economic sense is a global public good does not exhaust questions of content and value such as “whose public good?” and “in whose interests?” There is also the question of the extent to which the processes of producing, disseminating, and assigning value to knowledge encourage diverse approaches, or whether universal knowledge is monocultural, hegemonic, and universalizing. Arguably, fostering diversity of knowledge is a global public good. Yet paradoxically, standardization is also a global public good, to the extent that it helps all to communicate and share a common information system (Marginson, 2010c). In nations with academic cultures in, say, Spanish or Arabic, globalization generates both public goods and public “bads” unless there are broad two-way flows between the national and global domains (Marginson & Ordorika, 2011). Global knowledge goods such as research rest on a larger systemic context that is communicative, collaborative, and collective. Perhaps this is easier to grasp using the notion of public good rather than public goods. The Public Good (Singular) The more normative concept of “the public good” (Calhoun, 1998; Mansbridge, 1998) brings such choices into the open. It tends to emphasize joint or collective activities and benefits or a resource accessible to use by all, like the medieval commons (Powell & Clemens, 1998). Notions of inexhaustible natural resources make less sense than they did, but noncorporeal resources such as knowledge are inexhaustible. In social democracy, the common public good is associated with democratic forms, openness, transparency, popular sovereignty, and grassroots agency. However, this is not the only extant interpretation. “Public good” is assumption driven and prone to ambiguity. In pro-capitalist discourse, the general benefit is achieved by the unrestricted operation of Adam Smith’s (1776) invisible hand of the market. The accumulation of profit, free from interference, drives the prosperity of all. In socialist discourse, though, the general benefit

12  •  Simon Marginson

or public good is secured by statist regulation, the opposite of an unregulated capitalist market. Public good (singular) is more often linked to higher education than are public goods (plural). At best, public good ties universities into a larger process of democratization and human development. At worst, it is joined to empty self-marketing claims about the social benefits of education or research with no attempt to define, identify, or measure the alleged benefits. As with public goods (plural), the questions “whose public good?” and “in whose interests?” arise. Nevertheless, most notions of public good refer to broadly based interests, whether pursued democratically or by surrogate, as when someone claims to represent the public interest on behalf of the public. It is also expected that public good is widespread, if not universal. For example, it is often assumed that public higher education is open, egalitarian, and accountable to the larger community beyond higher education. A key issue here is how external accountability is manifest. Governments claim to represent the community but have their own interests and agendas. Privileged stakeholders, such as employers, may secure a voice in curriculum or professional registration. Outsiders may be elected to the governing body. How do local communities become involved? It is difficult for nonprofessionals to share control over expert functions such as research. The Public Sphere In The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, Habermas (1989) describes the public dimension of discussion, criticism, debate, and opinion formation in eighteenth-century England. This was the network of homes, salons, coffee shops, inns of court, counting houses, and semigovernment agencies: the places where people met and opinions were formed and communicated on the matters of the day. This was principally in London, extending to the universities and the country houses of the well-to-do. The Habermasian public sphere sustained a capacity for criticism independent of the state—and often directed toward it—while throwing up strategic options for the state to consider, contributing to its ongoing reform and renewal. It was a space of freedom episodically connected to power (Habermas, 1989, pp. 41 & 51). At one remove, this notion of the public sphere is suggestive in relation to the university (Calhoun, 1992, 2006; Pusser, 2006). Habermas does not draw the link. He sees the public sphere as degenerate in the twentieth century, the heyday of the university. Still, there are resonances. Habermas’s public sphere provided for nonviolent social integration based on discourse rather than power or money, like the university today. Information and education enable the public to reach not just a common but also a considered opinion (Calhoun, 1992, pp. 6, 14, &

The “Public” Contribution of Universities  •  13

29–30). At best the university, like the public sphere, is a semi-independent site for criticism and renewal of the state (though the state is not always listening). The rational-critical function of the bourgeois public sphere foundered because it could not sustain both homogeneity and openness. The university has a lesser requirement for homogeneity of values. It does not necessarily face the trade-off between critical capacity and scale. Universities have a notable capacity to hold in a bounded heterogeneity. Some contain much diversity of worldview, location, interest, project, and discipline. One way to conceive the public dimension in higher education is to imagine the sector as an umbrella public sphere sheltering projects that pertain to the public good (singular) and more narrowly defined public goods (plural). Most such public functions are associated with the university’s roles in knowledge, learning, and discourse. Habermas’s own focus on communicative relations points in this same direction. Pusser (2006) imagines the university as public sphere as an institutional space for reasoned argument and contending values. Higher education has been a principal medium for successive transformations: the civil rights movement, 1960s–1970s student power and grass-roots democracy, 1970s feminism, gay liberation, antinuclear and pro-ecology movements, and the 1990s–2000s “anti-globalization” protests against global injustice, corporate power, and violations of national sovereignty. This suggests that one test of the university–as–public sphere is the extent to which it provides space for criticism and challenge. Another test is how widespread social criticism is in practice. Not all academic freedoms generate new ideas. Faculty may opt instead for the comfortable life. Another approach is to conceive of the public sphere not as the university itself but as the communicative civil order spanning all social sectors. This communicative civil order intersects with government and markets but is larger than each (though it does not reach everyone) and not reducible to either. In networked modern societies, the communicative order is largely structured by the media, electronic conversation, and shared sites and projects, successors to the town hall meetings of the past. This imagining of the public sphere is compatible with the normative notion of the public good (singular) as the conditions of active democracy. It must be added that, like other democratic forms, this public sphere is not perfectly egalitarian, and it is less egalitarian than some. Like political parties, the media is open to capture by vested interests and shrill voices articulating those interests. Despite the potential for capture, at best this public sphere or civil society fosters creativity, criticism, discussion, and debate that energizes democracy. Operating outside the nation-state, it sources both the continual renewal of nations, and global society. Higher education institutions have much to contribute within this larger public sphere, so they must communicate effectively.

14  •  Simon Marginson

Can the university do it? On a good day it is like Habermas’s public sphere. The argument is carried by the merits of the case, not the identity of the arguer, and the university rests on “a kind of social intercourse that, far from presupposing the equality of status, disregarded status altogether.” It replaces “the celebration of rank” with the “parity of common humanity” (Habermas, 1989, p. 36). From time to time, there are flat collegial relations in academic and student circles, but the good days do not come often enough. It is not simply a problem of commercial capture (Bok, 2003) or managerialism. The university’s potential for flat discursive association is also undermined by the necessities of expertise (Calhoun, 2006) and by status differentiation in the hierarchical university field.

Conditions of “Public” Higher Education Public good and goods in higher education do not emerge in a vacuum but under specific conditions that enable and limit what can be achieved. Public good(s) must be slotted into a landscape occupied by established ways of imagining and practicing higher education, and subject to politics. Three Imaginaries Research literature and interviews with university presidents (Marginson, 2011) suggest there are three imaginaries widely known inside and outside the sector. These three imaginaries are associated with differing concepts and differing political, economic, and social interests. There are tensions between the three imaginaries, though they also have a long coexistence. Together they shape the sense of the possible in higher education. The first imaginary is the idea of higher education as an economic market: education and research as products in a national economic competition, universities as business firms, the World Trade Organization-General Agreement on Trade in Services (WTO-GATS) vision of a one-world freetrade zone in learning and intellectual property (IP). Higher education is seen as a system for producing and distributing economic values and for augmenting value created in other sectors. (The relation between higher education as capitalist producer and as handmaiden of capital elsewhere is never clear.) The underlying intellectual ideas are human capital theory (Becker, 1964) and production function economics. There is more than one economic imaginary. The critique of “academic capitalism” (Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004) rests not on neoclassical economics but on critical political economy, emancipation, and social justice. Martin Carnoy (1974) models global education as economic imperialism and resistance. However, these ideas are not dominant. Global capitalism has led ideas of modernization for two centuries. Mainstream thought about higher education is controlled by

The “Public” Contribution of Universities  •  15

neoliberalism, a political program in neoclassical economic language, which emphasizes the market economy (Naidoo, 2010; Rizvi & Lingard, 2010). Neoliberalism is strong in both the capitalist West and socialist-capitalist China (Hui, 2009), dominating state blueprints for education reform. The second imaginary has older roots. This is higher education as a field of status ranking and competition. The supporting intellectual ideas are the sociology of status, and positional goods and screening theory in economics (Blaug, 1970). Status is ubiquitous, especially in research universities. Higher education produces and allocates social positions, “positional goods” (Hirsch, 1976; Marginson, 2006b) or “status goods” (Frank & Cook, 1995). Symbols of status are integral to hierarchical academic affairs, with their medieval forms of public display, and status positions universities in relation to one another. Unlike commercial markets, university status ladders are conservative, reproducing much the same pecking order from generation to generation. However, few in higher education are untouched by the power of status to secure assent, define identity, and compel action. A career at Seoul National University in Korea is so valued that employees who are selected to work there pay large sums of money at the point of entry. Institutions display status conspicuously and continually, in the ancient form of gothic buildings, the modern form of science facilities and research outputs, and the corporate form of websites and global partnerships (Marginson, 2010a). Status competition overlaps with the economic market. Success in one helps success in the other. In research universities, however, the desire for status outweighs love of money. Resources are a necessary but not sufficient condition for the real objective—the timeless power and prestige of the university as an end in itself. The third imaginary is the networked and potentially more egalitarian university world patterned by communications, collegiality, linkages, partnerships, and global consortia. This imaginary was always part of higher education but has gained ground in the last 20 years, the era of global communications. It has intellectual support in sociological theorizations of the information society (e.g., Castells, 2000) and actor network theory (Latour, 2005). The network imaginary embodies permanent collaboration. It has an egalitarian, inclusive economic logic: as the network expands, each member receives ever-increasing benefits, tending to global universality. In 2008, two thirds of citations were international (National Science Board, 2010, p. 5.40), and a third of papers had international co-authors. Networks can be annexed to competitive strategies. They are used to build status. They are configured vertically as well as horizontally (“networking up”). Some are closed: universities are like sibling rivals, collaborating and competing with the same institutions. However, openness makes best use of the form. The same knowledge is capable of many permutations and uses. It is never finally confined. Weightless hyperabundant knowledge is scarcely compatible

16  •  Simon Marginson

with any economy of scarcity and bounded control. Though there is more potential for commercial science in biotechnology and pharmaceuticals than elsewhere (Bok, 2003), these can also be annexed for the public good—for example, in poor nations where commercial medicines are out of reach. Likewise, open source knowledge is both compatible and incompatible with status competition. Flat relations mediated by knowledge sharing tend to subvert status competition and hierarchy. Yet while status goods are private goods, public good research plays a key role in defining the hierarchy of institutions, reproducing the status of their degrees, and maintaining their revenue flows. Research performance measured as publications, citations, revenues, and doctoral numbers plays the first part in status rankings. Like all mass media, the Internet is a formidable engine for building status. In return, the hierarchy of universities decides which parcels of knowledge carry the most authority and value (Marginson, 2009). Knowledge flows and networks fit better to the ancient status hierarchy than to the modern economic market. Politics of Higher Education The other condition of public goods in higher education is that higher education is soaked in politics. Like the monasteries until their dissolution, higher education is valued and contested. People use it to secure advantage. Some do so in organized ways. Politics continually shapes the production of both public and private goods. The way public goods are organized, recognized and disseminated becomes part of their contents—and those coalitions and constituencies that have a stake in public goods tend to shape their organization. The political process is essential to public good(s) but an imperfect instrument for realizing them. It does not always recognize collective benefits created in higher education, such as advanced scientific literacy. When such benefits are not embedded in active constituencies, they are invisible, undefended, and underfunded. In political debate, there is much confusion about the nature of public goods and the distinction between public and private goods. One example is the politics of access. Data on social group inequality in participation measure higher education’s contribution to equitable opportunity. This function is broadly, though not universally, seen as a public good mission. However, the driver of the intense focus on social access, selection, and affirmative action is not primarily the common interest in equitable opportunity. What makes most people excited is that selection and access shape the distribution of private goods, in the form of scarce places in sought-after universities. Here the policy goal that reconciles the public good (singular) of equitable opportunity with desires for private goods (plural) can be summed up as “the fair allocation of private goods.” Note that this assumes social competition for entry can be so organized as to function in the collective interest.

The “Public” Contribution of Universities  •  17

Amartya Sen (2009) identifies two distinct approaches to social justice. One he labels “fairness,” the other “inclusion.” Prescriptions based on fairness generate a different student mix to prescriptions based on inclusion. Under some circumstances, the two are compatible. During rapid growth in student numbers, both are readily advanced. The share of enrollments of underrepresented groups can be lifted without displacing absolute numbers from other groups. Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) country history suggests that while universities readily advance inclusion, making permanent gains in the share of places is much more difficult (OECD, 2008), though countries are more successful with gender. As Pierre Bourdieu (1984) points out, competitive systems always favor persons from socioeconomic status groups with the best resources with which to compete. The fair allocation of private goods in higher education is a chimera, a fiction, unachievable— unless, as often happens, fairness is watered down so as to judge as fair whatever unequal result is thrown up by competition. In the same manner, we judge the outcome of a sporting contest post hoc as “fair” when we really mean “an accomplished fact.” This brutish notion of fairness mostly prevails in higher education. It confers on competition for entry into higher education, and the university rankings attached to this competition, a public good veneer they would otherwise lack, but this merely legitimates the unequal allocation of private goods. The public good created here is not social equity: it is social order and stability of a conservative kind. The consent given to the illusion of fairness in educational competition avoids an open, violent struggle for social position in the manner of, say, the late Roman Republic. The price of social peace is that unequal access to both public and private goods in higher education is made acceptable, and on a vast scale. Competition is better at creating private goods than public goods. Adam Smith never argued the invisible hand of the market created an optimal society. His point was that it created another common good, economic prosperity. This had to be modified by factoring in sociability and justice. Hence The Theory of Moral Sentiments (Smith, 1759) explained the affective ties between persons, and The Wealth of Nations (Smith, 1776) advocated state intervention in education. Arguably, advocates of equity in higher education spend too much energy trying to create the chimera of a fair competition over private goods. It is the competitive order itself that should be tackled, particularly the way status differentials in higher education undermine the commons. The neighborhood becomes fairer in higher education when the main game is not winner-take-all but shared and collective benefits.

18  •  Simon Marginson

How “Public” Is Higher Education? Market competition and status hierarchy are predisposed to private goods in Samuelson’s sense. Networks and knowledge constitute public goods, but these can be annexed to private goods and purposes. Given these operating conditions, how “public” is higher education? At bottom, this is an empirical question. To answer it, we need means of measuring particular aspects of “public” and then of making complex synthetic judgments about the incidence and degree of “publicness.” The answer also varies according to whether it is higher education and public goods (plural), the public good (singular), or the public sphere. The public good and public sphere can be apprehended only by synthetic judgment. There are valuable studies of the quantitative public benefits of higher education (McMahon, 2009) but, at this stage, the measures are either too partial or schematic wholes that leave out too much. The larger historical effects of higher education elude empirical definition. The literature also begs the question of whether the public and private benefits of higher education are zero-sum or positive sum, or the conditions under which one or another relation applies. Nevertheless, some preliminary comments can be made. In relation to public goods (plural), research differs from teaching. Research We have seen that research is nonrivalrous and thrives in open information settings (OECD, 2008). The great growth of Internet publishing constitutes an advance in its public character (webometrics, 2010). Research is a public good that enables other public goods and private goods. Some will say, “But what of knowledge subject to commercial property arrangements such as copyrights and patents? Isn’t that knowledge as private goods?” Knowledge goods become temporarily excludable when the legal regulation of IP is imposed, but knowledge goods are naturally excludable only when created. The creator or producer has first-mover advantage. This is the only viable basis for a commercial IP regime. The advantage diminishes to vanishing point when commercial knowledge goods circulate and become nonexcludable. Often, their use value remains constant while their exchange value tends toward zero. Copyright is not just difficult to police. It is violated at every turn and ultimately impossible to enforce. In China, the reward for academic publishing is not commercial royalties but enhanced status as a scholar. National publishing markets pay little more than lip service to American copyright regimes. In India, the dissemination of digital goods is led by lowcost free-market copying. These approaches, which are both precapitalist and postcapitalist, are more closely fitted to the nature of knowledge than is the capitalist market in IP.

The “Public” Contribution of Universities  •  19

Teaching Teaching can be a predominantly public good or a predominantly private good, depending on which is uppermost. It contains public good aspects: the knowledge learned, general education unrewarded in labor markets, education as a citizen entitlement to common culture and social opportunity, and the contribution of higher education to social tolerance and international understanding. It also carries private good aspects: scarce credentials, from exclusive higher education institutions, providing entry to income-generating professions. The program of study is a public good, readily disseminated outside the learning site. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) acknowledged this by placing its courseware on the Internet. This action did not impair the private value of MIT degrees, which derives not from content per se but from graduate networking, cultural capital and, above all, positional power. Higher education distributes private benefits of unequal value even in institutions that are state owned and free of tuition charges and, hence, nominally “public.” Exclusive research universities, private or public, allocate highest value private goods. A complex of factors determines the mix of, and balance between, public and private goods: policy, funding, academic cultures and curricula, the hierarchy of institutions, and the structuring of social and economic rewards beyond the university. University degrees can be more or less private: more or less exclusive, more or less income and status forming. Egalitarian systems in which status and resources are relatively flat, and relations between institutions are governed by cooperation and a managed division of labor, offer the most favorable conditions for allocating socially powerful opportunities (such as places in medicine) on the basis of such public good criteria as academic merit and/or social equity. Because degrees as private goods are subject to economic scarcity and their production and consumption are subject to competition—students compete for access to status goods, universities compete for good students and for status leadership—the production of these private goods is readily turned into an administered neoliberal quasi-market. The economic market readily secures part purchase. The ease with which the 1950s–1970s global trend to free education and labor planning was displaced by the 1980s and 1990s global trend to marketization and student choice, despite resistance, underlines the mixed potentials of teaching in higher education. Teaching is nicely poised between public and private. Thus, marketization is not simply due to neoliberal ideology and state cost cutting. There is always potential for teaching markets in higher education, more so because, in capitalist societies, the dominant players have a predilection for market forms. Markets foster social inequities, restrict access to public knowledge goods, distort the academic vocation, and breed self-centered, less public universities. In the first instance, the correctives to markets, and the

20  •  Simon Marginson

potential for evading them in part or full, are in the hands of states. But nation-states are habitually implicated in the marketization project, more so in the neoliberal era. Fortunately, that marketization project is never completed. The two big global economic ideas in higher education, prosecuted by neoliberal policy makers, were the WTO-GATS single trading environment to be secured by national competition reforms, and the world as a network of commercial e-universities offering virtual education. Both failed. Nor have the economic reform programs in national systems created fully commercial markets in tuition, except in marginal areas. In research policy, there has been a swing away from hypercommercialization and a renewed interest in open science. Why has the economic imaginary faltered? The WTO-GATS agenda and the e-universities were produced by mainstream business management thought, which has yet to grasp higher education. The e-universities failed to realize that while knowledge is mobile and lends itself to globalization, the university is also context bound. Its founding antinomy (its grounding in locality/mobility; and embeddedness/universality) remains essential to it. The WTO-GATS vision lacked purchase because the world is not one political economy and because learning includes knowledge. This ensures an irreducibly public component—unless knowledge content becomes irrelevant and only the diploma matters, as in “diploma mills.” At global level, the scope for marketization of higher education weakens. Quasi-markets, regulated competitive systems, can be implemented only by states. There is no global state. Meanwhile, knowledge and information flow freely without state interference, and status competition, which predates the modern nation-state and national political economy, also crosses borders with ease. The status and network imaginaries frame themselves without the need for a state.

A Democratic Publicness The Western democratic tradition is primarily a liberal tradition. All forms of liberalism struggle to understand the common and collective aspects of the public good except as the sum of realized individual benefits or as a spillover from individualized transactions. Confined by methodological individualism in which the individual is prior to the social, liberalism fails to value the collective imagination as an end in itself. The liberal individual grasps only those aspects of the social that stray within the circle of his/her autarkic worldview. (Confucian notions have a more developed understanding of higher education as a social project.) Despite F. A. Hayek’s (1960) claim, it is impossible to derive from liberal theory an understanding of “public,” and the contributions of universities to democracy, without unduly restricting the scope of freedoms. From time to time, liberal cultures incubate modes

The “Public” Contribution of Universities  •  21

of “public,” as Habermas (1989) notes in relation to the eighteenth-century public sphere, but only up to a point. At best such forms are a preparation for something better. The strength of liberalism is its promise to give each person dignity and the freedom to create. The promise does not always work out. The mutuality of freedom, its relational social condition, remains hidden. And so we turn to social democracy to enlarge “public,” even while looking beyond social democracy to a more global approach3 (Marginson, 2010b). Social democracy defines the public good in higher education in emancipatory terms. Equality means equality of respect and shared access to human freedoms. The freedoms of one are mutually dependent with the freedoms of all. These freedoms are enlarged by the evolution of the selfdetermining capacities (individual and collective) of all. This requires both the negative and positive conditions of agency freedom (Sen, 1985). This means freedom from such constraints as state interference in universities, and freedom to act, including the means to act. Because of its capacity to form self-altering agents (Castoriadis, 1987, p. 372) and in critical intellectual reflexivities, and because of its wonderfully easy fecundity in relationships across traditional boundaries, public higher education can be potent in building advanced democratic forms, as recognized in some national policy traditions (for Mexico and Argentina, see Mollis, 1999/2000; Ordorika, 2003) and in the global chain of transformative student protests in the late 1960s (Students for a Democratic Society, 1962). Above all, higher education can make solidarity practical by tackling on a collaborative basis common human problems such as climate change and epidemic disease. These problems are not solved overnight. The public good in higher education is historical and never exhausted by immediate outcomes. We cannot anticipate all future uses of the university, but ongoing capacity must be ready for them. To maximize its forward potential, public higher education should be a space for free creativity and heterogeneous projects for their own sake: Cultural production is always an end in itself; it is one of the reasons we are alive. And some of the projects of today are prototypes for the solutions of tomorrow.

Conclusions What are the next steps? What are the obstacles? There is no road-map here. In China, Dong Xiaoping is said to have called it “crossing the river by feeling the stones.” The first conclusion may surprise. The larger enemy of the public good and public sphere is not the economic market but the status hierarchy. The public character of U.S. higher education is stymied by the annual US News and World Report exercise. The play of university self-interest weakens public good mechanisms such as needs-based aid. Now, global rankings

22  •  Simon Marginson

have caught all universities, all over the world, in the same status incentive trap. Status competition plays out between not only universities but also national systems. It ranks them vertically on the world scale and confirms the dominance of the comprehensive Anglo-American science university. This guarantees the favored nations more than their share of private goods. It also narrows the diversity of knowledge securing global value, through which public goods are created. Despite neoliberalism, the economic market has not taken over the sector, but status competition—which conditions partial commodification, restricts the flow of public benefits, and splinters the common interest—has moved in everywhere. Second, the antidote to status competition—one that creates space for the global public good to evolve—is the third imaginary, the communicative world of flat networks and collegial relations, which lends itself to open, democratic, collaborative forms and gives authority to knowledge from anywhere. Third, we must break our imagined dependence on states as the source of the collective, of global public good(s). Because knowledge lends itself to global flows, in a knowledge-intensive age, research universities are important creators of global goods—though this is underrecognized. The global public space lies mostly outside direct governance, in collaborative networks, nongovernmental organizations, and cyberspace, where higher education is helping to build the future global society. We need to break out of the iron-bound national-level struggles over public good and private interest in higher education. Nationally, the economic market and status competition have locked down the common good. It is difficult to move on “public.” Global public good(s) is the wild card that trumps these limitations. Potentially, it has deep and wide political appeal. If it builds momentum, it cuts across the capture of higher education by private interests. It is the game changer. Accordingly, the communicative aspect of universities is now centrally important to the evolution of their public character, more so in the global dimension (Marginson, 2010b, forthcoming). Many universities are good at the one-way broadcast of self-interest, in a manner familiar in capitalist societies. Most universities neglect two-way flows and flat dialogue, yet they have the technologies and discursive resources to conduct plural decentered conversations. If so, the university needs to more explicitly value its own contributions to public debate and policy formation and, in its incentive systems, to favor not just the creators of saleable IP but socially communicative faculty. It would be trite to underplay the difficulties. The university, as or in the public sphere, calls up a new kind of institution and a challenging double act. The problem is both to recover autonomy from state-driven and marketdriven heteronomy—persuading government to free the university from

The “Public” Contribution of Universities  •  23

the intrusive steering mechanisms introduced in the last generation—and to reconfigure the university in a larger democratic setting. It is a tall order, but that is a symptom of the malaise, not a sign that it cannot be overcome. And it must be overcome. Higher education has lost rationale and needs to reground itself in the social. It will need to find the way to make visible global public goods if it is not to follow the Tudor monasteries into oblivion.

Notes 1 The chapter cannot do justice to the relevant literatures in political philosophy, political economy, global sociology, and comparative higher education studies. Some issues are discussed more elsewhere (e.g., Marginson, 2006a, 2007, forthcoming). 2 The term goods is used generically to refer to all production, including benefits that are intangible or noncorporeal and services such as education. 3 Notwithstanding the successive socialist internationals, social democracy often lapses into a nation-bound view of the world, where mass social democratic politics gains most ready purchase. Too often its global imagination is weak.

References Becker, G. (1964). Human capital: A theoretical and empirical analysis, with special reference to education. New York: Columbia University Press. Blaug, M. (1970). An introduction to the economics of education. Harmondsworth, England: Penguin. Bok, D. (2003). Universities in the market-place: The commercialization of higher education. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A social critique of the judgment of taste, trans. R. Nice. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Brigden, S. (2002). New worlds, lost worlds: The rule of the Tudors, 1485–1603. Harmondsworth, England: Penguin. Calhoun, C. (1992). Introduction: Habermas and the public sphere. In C. Calhoun (Ed.), Habermas and the public sphere (pp. 1–48). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Calhoun, C. (1998). The public good as a social and cultural project. In W. Powell & E. Clemens (Eds.), Private action and the public good (pp. 20–35). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Calhoun, C. (2006). The university and the public good. Thesis Eleven, 84, pp. 7–43. Carnoy, M. (1974). Education and cultural imperialism. London: Longman. Castells, M. (2000). The rise of the network society (2nd ed.). In The information age: Economy, society and culture (Vol. 1). Oxford: Blackwell. Castoriadis, C. (1987). The imaginary institution of society, trans. K. Blamey. Cambridge, England: Polity. Frank, R., & Cook, P. (1995). The winner-take-all society. New York: The Free Press. Gernet, J. (1982). A history of Chinese civilization (2nd ed.), trans. J. R. Foster & C. Hartman. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Habermas, J. (1989). The structural transformation of the public sphere: An inquiry into a category of bourgeois society, trans. T. Burger & F. Lawrence. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. (First published in Germany in 1962.)

24  •  Simon Marginson Hayek, F. (1960). The constitution of liberty. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Hirsch, F. (1976). Social limits to growth. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hui, Wang (2009). The end of the revolution: China and the limits of modernity. London: Verso. Kaul, I., Grunberg, I., & Stern M. (Eds.). (1999). Global public goods: International cooperation in the 21st century. New York: Oxford University Press. Latour, B. (2005). Reassembling the social: An introduction to actor-network-theory. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. Mansbridge, J. (1998). On the contested nature of the public good. In W. Powell & E. Clemens (Eds.), Private action and the public good (pp. 3–19). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Marginson, S. (2006a). Putting “public” back into the public university. Thesis Eleven, 84, 44–59. Marginson, S. (2006b). Dynamics of national and global competition in higher education. Higher Education, 52, 1–39. Marginson, S. (2007). The public/private division in higher education: A global revision. Higher Education, 53, 307–333. Marginson, S. (2009). University rankings and the knowledge economy. In M. Peters, S. Marginson & P. Murphy, Creativity and the global knowledge economy (pp. 185– 216). New York: Peter Lang. Marginson, S. (2010a). Making space in higher education. In S. Marginson, P. Murphy & M. Peters, Global creation: Space, mobility and synchrony in the age of the knowledge economy (pp. 150–200). New York: Peter Lang. Marginson, S. (2010b). World. In P. Murphy, M. Peters & S. Marginson, Imagination: Three models of imagination in the age of the knowledge economy (pp. 139–165). New York: Peter Lang. Marginson, S. (2010c). University. In P. Murphy, M. Peters & S. Marginson, Imagination: Three models of imagination in the age of the knowledge economy (pp. 167–223). New York: Peter Lang. Marginson, S. (2011). Global perspectives and strategies of Asia-Pacific universities. In N. Liu & J. Salmi (Eds.), Paths to a world-class university (pp. 3–27). Rotterdam, Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Marginson, S. (forthcoming). Imagining the global. In R. King, S. Marginson & R. Naidoo (Eds.), Handbook on globalization and higher education. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Marginson, S., & Ordorika, I. (2011). “El central volumen de la fuerza”: Global hegemony in higher education and research. In C. Calhoun & D. Rhoten (Eds.), Knowledge matters: The public mission of the research university (pp. 67–129). New York: Columbia University Press. McMahon, W. (2009). Higher learning, greater good: The private and social benefits of higher education. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Mollis, M. (1999/2000). The reform university in Argentina. Australian Universities Review, 42 (2) & 43 (1), 64–69. Naidoo, R. (2010). Global learning in a neoliberal age: Implications for development. In E. Unterhalter & V. Carpentier (Eds.), Global inequalities and higher education: Whose interests are we serving? (66–90). London: Palgrave Macmillan.

The “Public” Contribution of Universities  •  25 National Science Board (NSB), United States. (2010). Science and engineering indicators 2010. Retrieved April 18, 2010 from http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/ seind10/ Ordorika, I. (2003). Power and politics in university governance: Organization and change at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. New York: Routledge Falmer. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). (2008). Tertiary education for the knowledge society: OECD thematic review of tertiary education. Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Powell, W., & Clemens, E. (Eds.). (1998). Private action and the public good. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Pusser, B. (2006). Reconsidering higher education and the public good: The role of public spheres. In W. Tierney (Ed.), Governance and the public good (pp. 11–28). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Rizvi, F., & Lingard, B. (2010). Globalizing education policy. London: Routledge. Samuelson, P. (1954). The pure theory of public expenditure. Review of Economics and Statistics, 36 (4), 387–389. Sen, A. (1985). Well-being, agency and freedom: The Dewey lectures 1984. The Journal of Philosophy 82 (4), 169–221. Sen, A. (2000). Development as freedom. New York: Basic Books. Sen, A. (2009). The idea of justice. London: Allen Lane. Slaughter, S., & Rhoades, G. (2004). Academic capitalism and the new economy. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Smith, A. (1759). The theory of moral sentiments (2004). Barnes and Noble: New York. Smith, A. (1776). An inquiry into the wealth of nations (1979). Harmondsworth, England: Penguin. Stiglitz, J. (1999). Knowledge as a global public good. In I. Kaul, I. Grunberg, & M. Stern (Eds.), Global public goods: International cooperation in the 21st century (pp. 308–325). New York: Oxford University Press. Students for a Democratic Society. (1962). Port Huron statement. Retrieved August 31, 2010 from http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Resources/ Primary/Manifestos/SDS_Port_Huron.html webometrics (2010). Ranking web of world universities. Retrieved March 2, 2010 from http://www.webometrics.info/

3

Power and Authority in the Creation of a Public Sphere Through Higher Education

Brian Pusser

Introduction In light of contemporary political and economic demands for transformation of the organization and finance of public higher education in the United States, a number of scholars have endeavored to conceptualize the impact of such demands on the possibility of creating a public sphere through higher education (Calhoun, 2006; Giroux, 2010; Marginson, 2007a; Pusser, 2006). This work builds on prior research on the idea of the public sphere more generally (Calhoun, 1992; Fraser, 1992; Habermas, 1962; Mansbridge, 1998) in order to envision a specific space, the university as a public sphere. This challenge takes on additional salience as neoliberal restructuring moves to the fore in U.S. postsecondary institutions, forcing reconsideration of traditional authority relations (McClennen, 2010; Pusser, 2008). The effort to conceptualize a public sphere through higher education begins with locating the university1 as a site of critical discourse, a physical and discursive space for unfettered critique and knowledge production (Ambrozas, 1998; Pusser, 2006). The ideal public sphere through education is conceptualized as a postsecondary space that is free from domination by any one interest or ideology (Marginson, 2007a; Pusser, 2008). Central to that vision is recognition of the four essential forces shaping the contemporary university: the State,2 the market, the institutions themselves, and the efforts of social actors, independently and through civil society. The consideration of social actors (Castells, 2008) is an extension of traditional tripartite approaches to authority relations in higher education (Clark, 1983; 27

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Ordorika & Pusser, 2007; Pusser, 2008). I use civil society here to refer to a complex and overlapping array of associations distinct from the State. To accompany the discussion of the civil society, I also rely on the concept of the populace, those individuals who are not active participants in the associations of the civil society or who belong to less formal associations. These individuals are likely to have fewer resources, networks, and points of influence than more privileged actors in society. I use the construct of the populace to turn attention to the diversity of actors and distinctively different relations to power and authority possessed by individuals within the group generally described in research on higher education as “the public,” a broad term with a great many referents.3 The members of the populace are also distinguished by being historically located at some distance economically and politically from elite higher education. Those social actors who have close ties to universities are also more likely to belong to influential associations within the civil society. Members of the populace are less likely to have direct ties to the university or the civil society. The concept of the civil society is also contested and has evolved over time. In assessing authority relations in higher education, I make a distinction between the civil society and the market. As Calhoun (1992) suggests of the original seventeenth-century conceptualization of civil society, “Capitalist market economies formed the basis of this civil society, but it included a good deal more than that. It included institutions of sociability and discourse only loosely related to the economy” (pp. 8–9). Understanding the degree to which each of the central forces shaping higher education facilitates or constrains the realization of the university as a public sphere also calls for an analysis of the competition for authority over global and national affairs that shapes political institutions (Hodgson, 2009). This, in turn, requires understanding the university as a political institution, a vehicle for the allocation of significant costs and benefits through a public and politically mediated decision-making process: at once a site of political contest and an instrument in broader political-economic contests (Ordorika, 2003; Pusser, 2004). The university’s role as a political institution presents a particular challenge to its potential to serve as a contemporary public sphere. It calls for the university to be at once accountable to demands from the political economy without being dominated by them. The same can be said for the internal political dynamics of the institution, in which a variety of actors and interests must be accountable to hierarchies and alignments of power, without being dominated by external constituencies of the university. Similarly, the institutions and their leadership must endeavor to avoid constraining the essential functions of the university as a center of knowledge production, critique, and discourse. Envisioning the university as a public sphere requires a leap of faith. As a concept, the public sphere seems to fall somewhere between a utopian vision and wishful thinking, both at some distance from the empirical

Power and Authority in the Creation of a Public Sphere  •  29

and practitioner-oriented work that has long dominated the scholarship of higher education. Yet such a university is entirely plausible. To bring it into being requires acknowledging that the university as we know it has long been contested, that it is a site of practically limitless possibility for recreation and innovation, and that its role in the broader political economy of the United States has been poorly understood. In this chapter, I argue that conceptualizing and realizing the university as a public sphere are the most significant challenges colleges and universities in the United States face today. However constrained it may currently be, without finding the path to protect unfettered knowledge production and critique, the university can liberate neither itself nor the society it seeks to serve. To realize a public sphere in higher education also calls for deconstructing the forces that constrain the contemporary university from serving as a public sphere, an essential role that is, by the authors in this volume at least, very much to be wished for. That deconstruction requires attention to what the contemporary university does, the interests it serves, and the ways in which its purposes may also serve to limit critique, to narrow semantic space, and to temper discussions of power.

The State and Critical Research To understand higher education in any context requires addressing essential purposes. Research on higher education in the United States has long been hampered by a lack of attention to the interests served by the processes and outputs of colleges and universities (Giroux & Giroux, 2004; Slaughter, 1990). It is also the case that political frameworks for understanding higher education in the United States have been generally based in rational choice models, with neoliberal economic models ascendant throughout the social sciences for the past two decades (Marginson, 1997; Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004). The twin pillars of rational choice and neoliberalism have at once narrowed the lens for contemplating the possibilities of higher education and established a formidable normative bias for understanding higher education as fundamentally a site for the production of private goods (Marginson, 2007a). In most national contexts, the purposes of a public political institution such as a university can be divined through attention to the State and the role of a particular institution in the State project. In the United States, this has proven a daunting task. Too often in scholarly work and political debates, postsecondary purposes are embedded in inspiring but too broad mission statements and are represented by the overarching triad of teaching, research, and service. Much of the research and scholarship on postsecondary education in the United States is underpinned by a basic normative and functionalist assumption that institutions exist to generate public and private goods in the public interest. Those public and private goods are defined in quite expansive terms: access and

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citizenship development on the one hand and social mobility and economic development on the other (Labaree, 1997). Weisbrod, Ballou, and Asch (2008) aggregate these postsecondary outcomes under the rubric of “mission goods.” They describe the process of generating revenue to sustain those activities as the pursuit of “revenue goods” (2008, p. 2). David Kirp (2003) summed up the parameters of the emerging postsecondary model nicely in the title of his book, Shakespeare, Einstein and the Bottom Line. The focus of scholars of postsecondary education in the United States, to the extent that we have turned attention to the essential interests shaping the production of those mission goods, has primarily been on authority relations as a process of interest articulation (Baldridge, 1971; Pusser, 2008) and on rational-functionalist models of the organization and governance of higher education (Pusser & Marginson, forthcoming). Beginning in the mid-1980s, two emerging perspectives began to inform the scholarship of postsecondary education in the United States. The first turned attention to the State as a conceptual frame for understanding the governance of educational institutions, primarily at the level of elementary-secondary schooling (Apple, 1982; Carnoy & Levin, 1985) but with some attention to higher education (Rhoades, 1992; Slaughter, 1990). The second was an infusion of critical theory into research on education and society (Bourdieu, 1984; Bowles & Gintis, 1976; Morrow & Torres, 1995) that preceded a similar approach in higher education (McDonough, 1997; Solorzano, 1998; Tierney, 1991). While these works constituted a small portion of the overall output of scholarship in higher education, they pointed the way to a new wave of work that applied both critical and State-theoretical approaches to research on higher education (Marginson, 1997; Metcalfe, 2008; Ordorika, 2003; Pusser, 2004; Schugurensky, 2006). Combining the critical and State-theoretical perspectives created a pathway to models for understanding postsecondary interests beyond the rational choice and interest articulation frames. It turned attention to such undertheorized concepts in higher education research as the ways in which normative beliefs and discourse privilege particular interests, the zero-sum nature of production of private goods, and the application of various forms of capital to and through higher education and, perhaps most important, to power. In understanding the potential for a public sphere through higher education, and the constraints on its creation, it is essential to incorporate a critical lens with attention to power in the analysis of each leg of the traditional triangle of authority relations and to the civil society.

Four Forces in Tension There are four primary forces that shape the realization of a public sphere through higher education: the role of the State, neoliberal market policies, the

Power and Authority in the Creation of a Public Sphere  •  31

institutions themselves, and the efforts of social actors. These forces, which often overlap and engage in various ways, also reflect essential and historical contests over authority relations in the university, within and across national contexts (Clark, 1983; Pusser, 2008). Though it is essential to acknowledge that the State plays multiple roles in the contemporary political economy of the United States, particularly in a neoliberal moment, a fundamental role of the State is to privilege capital formation and economic development through provision, regulation, and subsidy (Ordorika & Pusser, 2007). This process is manifest in State demands for economic development and capital formation through colleges and universities, a process often described, as President Obama put it in a speech at a community college, “to prepare our people with the skills they need to compete in this global economy” (the White House, 2009). The second tension is created by the increasing dominance of neoliberal market metaphors and policies to promote national and international competition through higher education. Here postsecondary institutions are pressured to compete for quasi-private streams of funding, such as higher tuition, to commodify research practices and products for commercial return and to monetize historical equity, legacies, and images (Bok, 2003; Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004). The conditions for creating a public sphere through higher education are also shaped by demands for increased control over resources and decision making by institutional leaders and their allies within and beyond the campuses. In the contemporary context, this process is characterized by demands for organizational autonomy (Pusser, 2008), often linked to arguments for institutional freedom to pursue increased quality and prestige. Whereas scholars have historically suggested that greater autonomy would lead to gains in efficiency and accountability (Berdahl, 1971), more recently, while elite public and private institutions have gained greater control over revenue and decision making (Weisbroad et al., 2008) this has taken place against a backdrop of increased stratification (Astin & Oseguera, 2004). The fourth tension is driven by the continuing withdrawal of a significant measure of popular support for State provision of services, including education. This retrenchment has been driven in part by contest in the broader society and the populace’s continuing disengagement from higher education. It is evidenced by several policy shifts in the broader political economy, including the retreat from tax support for social welfare functions and the rise in challenges to government throughout the political economy. The efforts of social actors, the discourse and actions of significant associations within the civil society, the contested alliance between the populace and higher education, and the increasing stratification of elite postsecondary institutions over the past three decades have served to reify an essential tenet of the neoliberal project—that the most legitimate outputs

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of public and private universities are private goods (Friedman & Friedman, 1980; Marginson, 2007a). Taken together, contests over the legitimate roles of the State, the market, postsecondary institutions, and social actors have increasingly constrained the space for critical discourse, critical pedagogies, knowledge production in the service of the public good, and the support of social movements through higher education. These four forces, and the interactions among them, effectively limit the space for the creation of a public sphere through higher education. However, the research university holds the potential for innovation and liberation on many dimensions. Through deconstruction and contextualization of each of the major constraints, it is possible to imagine a space in higher education that emancipates, rather than constrains, the creation of a public sphere. The Neoliberal State and Higher Education The essential questions to ask about the role of public institutions in a given context are “What is the nature of the State?” and “What role does the university play in meeting the goals of the State?” As Rhoades (1992) noted two decades ago, the State has long been virtually absent from research on higher education in the United States. Despite the recent attention to the State as an organizing frame, little research in higher education has addressed the essential character of the State in the United States (Pusser, 2008). Various scholars, including many in this volume, have pointed to the rise of neoliberal policies around the world and to the impact of neoliberalism on public higher education (Giroux, 2010; Kempner & Jurema, 2006; Rhoads & Torres, 2006). Yet few have embedded the rise in neoliberal policies within the broader evolution of neoliberal approaches to the State in the United States. Fewer still have asked, “How do State efforts to privilege capital and economic development shape the organization, governance, and production of higher education?” It is important to acknowledge the central role of the scholarship of Sheila Slaughter and her collaborators (Slaughter, 1990; Slaughter & Leslie, 1997; Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004). Slaughter’s work opened intellectual space for a State-centered approach to the university’s relationship to capitalism, as it relied on a variety of frames, including resource dependence and a “theory of academic capitalism” that juxtaposes a deconstruction of resource dependence models with a critical approach to markets and commercialized resource generation strategies (Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004). That is, the work illuminates the impact of market values on higher education and the interwoven nature of academic production and economic development in the United States. Given the political nature of State projects, the theory of academic capitalism would seem to lead directly to a consideration of the

Power and Authority in the Creation of a Public Sphere  •  33

political dynamics of the State and higher education in the United States, an important area of future research. The State and Various Forms of Capital in Higher Education Scholars have long turned attention to some of the forms of capital generated through higher education and the impact of those processes on the organization and governance of colleges and universities (Ehrenberg, 2000; Hutchins, 1936; Kerr, 2001; Veblen, 1918). In the United States, much of the attention in early colleges and universities was to the use value of education, to training for the ministry, professions, and a life of service (Rudolph, 1965). Slaughter (1990) noted the importance of the growth of the administrative component of the State in the years following World War II as a key driver of enrollments in higher education. Whereas social mobility through education has long been part of the American vision (Labaree, 1997), it wasn’t until the 1970s, concurrent with the ascendance of formal human capital theory (Becker, 1976) and the recognition of the wage premium to high-status postsecondary degrees, that competition for admission to elite institutions and programs became broadly inscribed in the American postsecondary consciousness (Geiger, 2004). This period also witnessed the rapid emergence of a national competition for elite (high-performing) students, supported to no small degree by State-subsidized portable financial aid (Ehrenberg, 2000). At the same time, elite public and private universities joined the competition for Cold-War-driven federal research funding, one of the State’s most significant levers for shaping postsecondary institutions. The rapid growth of research funding transformed many elite institutions from colleges focused on undergraduate and professional training to centers of basic research (Kerr, 2001; Lowen, 1997). With the passage of the Bayh-Dole Act4 in 1980 and the imposition of neoliberal models of public finance ushered in by the Reagan administration, the State role shifted markedly. Public research universities and many of their private counterparts increasingly became engines of applied research in pursuit of revenue and economic development through patents and technology transfer (Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004; Weisbrod et al., 2008). These colleges were also increasingly recognized as points of access for undergraduate and professional training for high-status professions. The extent of this shift became particularly apparent in the wake of the economic collapse of 2008, when a number of observers noted the degree to which graduates of elite universities in the United States had been going to work in the financial sector. Economist Benjamin Friedman (2009) wrote: For years, much of the best young talent in the western world has gone to private financial firms. At Harvard more than a quarter of our recent

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graduates who have taken jobs have headed into finance. The same is true elsewhere. The extent to which employees in the US financial sector are more likely to have college educations than other workers has more than tripled over the last three decades. At the individual level, no one can blame these graduates. But at the level of the aggregate economy, we are wasting one of our most precious resources. The Market and the Public Sphere A remarkable amount of research on the political economy of higher education over the past three decades has been devoted to the rise of market models of postsecondary organization (Friedman & Friedman, 1980; Marginson, 1997; Slaughter & Leslie, 1997; Weisbrod et al., 2008). Few issues have touched more aspects of the postsecondary arena, or proven more intellectually challenging, than efforts to understand new forms of organization based in something called “a market” or “marketlike” behaviors. Many critical scholars link the rise of demands for marketlike behaviors in higher education to the neoliberal paradigms advanced by Hayek (1960) and Friedman (2002), whereas others trace the project back to Adam Smith (Pusser, 2008). Understanding the market model of postsecondary production is made more complex by the interwoven and overlapping strands of theory, policy, and politics that shape the hegemonic positioning of the market, as they incorporate disparate elements of social thought and actors ranging from Michel Foucault to Ronald Reagan. With regard to the public sphere through higher education, the effort to impose market values in the restructuring of contemporary higher education in the United States becomes essentially a contest over the degree to which the State should directly provide, subsidize, or regulate the production of essential public services and goods. Neoliberal rhetoric has shaped university organization and behavior for more than three decades on several key dimensions. First, it has promoted the private benefits of education and sublimated or belittled efforts to define public goods through higher education. Perhaps the archetypal expression of this philosophy comes through the work of Milton and Rose Friedman (Friedman & Friedman, 1980), who summed up their lack of faith in generating public goods from State provision of higher education this way: “In the interim we have tried to induce the people who make this argument to be specific about the alleged social benefits. The answer is almost always bad economics” (pp. 178–179). In practice, the repeated assertion that there are few public benefits from higher education has created political space for the retrenchment from taxsupported subsidies for universities. In turn, political actors and institutional leaders have, whether tacitly or actively, worked to replace State revenue with

Power and Authority in the Creation of a Public Sphere  •  35

tuition increases. Over time, this process has further reified the neoliberal policy axioms that those who benefit should pay and that those who retreat from paying lose nothing. Like other symbolic political reframing—the notion of a “death tax” in place of the estate tax, for example—the endless incantation of the benefits of competition, choice, and efficiency have pushed to the furthest edge of the stage the vision of education as what Labaree (2000) called, in contrast, “an inescapably public good.” Under market competition, one would assume that shifting direct fees for postsecondary education to individuals would increase the influence of those paying the fees. The notion of the student-as-consumer exerting the invisible hand of demand to compel change in the provision of education is central to market discourse; however, in elite nonprofit higher education institutions, such increased student demand power is limited by prestige competition. That is, the high degree of selectivity elite institutions exercise suggests that any given individual has little demand power on the basis of the revenue he or she provides. What is powerful in the prestige competition are elite students’ characteristics: high degrees of preparation, test scores, legacy status, and so forth. Unlike classic market competition, in the case of elite higher education, student demand is limited by the parameters of prestige competition (Pusser & Marginson, forthcoming). Postsecondary Institutions and the Public Sphere Elite postsecondary institutions are themselves significant forces shaping contemporary higher education in the United States (Pusser, 2004; Pusser & Marginson, forthcoming). Institutional efforts to shape policy in the political economy have generally been seen as part of institutions’ responsibilities to students, the State, and other key constituents. The notion of institutions as “interest articulators,” mediators of external demands, goes back to research and conceptual framing initiated nearly four decades ago (Baldridge, 1971). While responding to external demands is a legitimate aspect of institutional governance, it is also the case that universities, as political institutions, are self-interested organizations (Moe, 1996). Competition for such resources as research funding and financial aid has motivated institutions to go beyond the articulation of interests to engage in more direct action in the political economy, through national postsecondary associations, university offices of governmental relations, and lobbyists (Savage, 1999). This process has been accelerated by global ranking systems that promote zero-sum competition for students, faculty, and resources (Marginson, 2007b; Pusser & Marginson, forthcoming). It is also the case that institutions are instruments in broader political and economic contests, as external interests seek to use the visibility, symbolic value, and resources of postsecondary organizations to gain greater power and influence (Pusser, 2004). In similar fashion, institutional efforts

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to increase revenue from applied research have entailed significant growth in partnerships between academic institutions and private-sector interests that challenge the traditionally open policies of knowledge dissemination in academe (Kirp, 2003). At the same time, the rise in revenue-generating institutional science projects has reduced the relative importance of basic research, traditionally the site of the most unfettered knowledge production in academic science (Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004). Inherent in the neoliberal project is a challenge to the role of professional expertise, particularly in education where that professionalism has been portrayed in neoliberal discourse as either inefficient due to insulation from the market (Friedman & Friedman, 1980) or ideological in ways that do not reflect the broader society. Yet the role of faculty as professionals central to the training of other professionals has a long history in U.S. higher education (Rhoades, 1998). Rudolph (1965) links the centrality of universities as sites of professional development and practice for the State and the civil society to both the land-grant college movement and the progressive era. As he put it, The universities, which in the decades after the Civil War had found themselves performing unaccustomed services for the American farm and the American factory, now found themselves catering to the needs of government for trained men and women knowledgeable in such fields as political economy, sociology and public administration. (Rudolph, 1965, p. 365) One of the more dramatic effects of the neoliberal policy of reducing tax support for higher education in the United States is the rapid increase in tuition price at selective public institutions. Though the substitution of higher levels of tuition for state allocations is today largely attributed to the global economic recession, it began well before the current crisis. It is also the case that there is nothing about the recession that prohibits states from increasing various taxes to provide revenue for higher education. What is lacking is a political movement to counter the neoliberal blockade on tax increases for such key forms of wealth accumulation as personal income, capital gains, corporate profits, and estates. There are two key aspects of tuition increases that shape the possibilities for creating a public sphere through higher education: an eventual leveling of public and private tuition prices and the importance of tuition as a driver of debates over higher education. On the first point, a primary explanation for the general legislative acquiescence in steady tuition increases has been that selective public education is a “bargain” relative to tuition prices at selective private institutions. Whereas their missions have traditionally been distinctly different, as State subsidies decline and private revenue sources increase, the functions of public and private elite institutions will become

Power and Authority in the Creation of a Public Sphere  •  37

increasingly alike. So too will their respective prices of admission. Indeed, it is already the case for many graduate and professional programs. Though the State may use regulatory mechanisms to preserve the “public” orientation of public institutions, the case for a distinctive public mission is weakened where the State reduces its subsidy for that mission. Acquiescence by the State and support for tuition increases from those social actors and civil society associations that support neoliberal policies also narrow the space for debate and discussion, as the multifaceted contest over tuition has been used historically to raise fundamental questions about access to elite public postsecondary education. As elite universities continue to reduce the number of tenured faculty, direct their resources to disciplines with perceived commercial potential, decrease funding for arts and humanities, and raise tuitions, their essential character changes in ways that have significant implications for the public sphere through higher education. In essence, though they continue to be sites of contest over neoliberal values, we may question whether they remain instruments of neoliberal policies, or whether they are on the verge of becoming neoliberal institutions, drivers of the continuing process of instilling neoliberal values in the broader society. If present trends continue, elite universities may well continue as State-building institutions; yet rather than serving as sites for discussion and analysis of the most just and effective form of the State, they will increasingly be contributing to the continued instantiation of one form, the neoliberal State. Social Actors and the Public Sphere The role of social actors and the civil society in shaping public and private institutions has been neglected in theorizing a public sphere through higher education. Michael Edwards suggests the idea of the civil society has been contested and transformed over time (2004). The Centre for Civil Society has constructed a useful contemporary definition: Civil society refers to the arena of uncoerced collective action around shared interests, purposes and values. In theory, its institutional forms are distinct from those of the state, family and market, though in practice, the boundaries between state, civil society, family and market are often complex, blurred and negotiated. Civil society commonly embraces a diversity of spaces, actors and institutional forms, varying in their degree of formality, autonomy and power. (Centre for Civil Society, 2011). Here I also distinguish civil society from political society (Gramsci, 1971), although there are many interactions between the two. Considering

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the concept of the populace as a distinct group within the set of social actors also has important implications for understanding contemporary normative beliefs of higher education as a primarily private good. That is, society includes individuals in quite different political, economic, and social locations. One interpretation of the populace is that it can be seen as a less privileged group of social actors, those at some distance from economic and political power. Given their national and global orientations, elite public and private research universities have long existed at some remove from individuals in the society who do not attend the institutions or have close ties to higher education. This is not to suggest that the institutions don’t engage in outreach, community engagement, or civic alliances. Rather, despite efforts at community building, they are historically located in, but not fully of, local communities and the wider society. It is also the case that associations within the civil society, such as those composed of parents of college students or organizations seeking to increase postsecondary attainment, have built access networks that may not incorporate significant numbers of the populace. This distance is also due, in some measure, to the structure of political control of public research universities and the selective character of elite institutions. For the most part, the oversight of public postsecondary institutions is the responsibility of legislatures and other political actors. This process is further mediated by the powerful role of public university governing boards, bodies generally composed of social actors with close ties to political leaders and key actors in the State. Similarly, trustees of governing boards tend to be successful entrepreneurs, with myriad connections to the State and market (Pusser, Slaughter, & Thomas, 2006; Pusser, 2008). Though the institutions themselves are politically active in a variety of ways, they are infrequently subject to direct referenda. When they are, as where statewide ballot initiatives propose changes to university policies, the institutional leadership is not well positioned to respond effectively to political demands from the civil society and the populace (Pusser, 2004). Public universities are generally constrained from partisan political action. They do receive significant support from social actors with close ties to the institutions, yet they are traditionally less effective in building sustained political coalitions with the populace and many elements of the civil society. Elite universities do contribute to many social and economic projects with considerable political salience and social benefits. These institutions also make significant efforts to promote those contributions widely. Yet, as evidenced by both the persistent challenges to university policy in those states that allow the use of ballot initiatives and the pervasive rise of neoliberal policies more generally, it can be argued that the relationship between the institutions and the civil society remains a sphere of contest, and the connection between elite institutions and the populace is tenuous. In the political arena, elite postsecondary institutions have generally relied on

Power and Authority in the Creation of a Public Sphere  •  39

influential social actors, core constituents, alumni, and allies in the business community. The institutions also draw on support from professional associations and lobbyists as well as university administrators tasked with outreach to policy makers (Savage, 1999). Those associations in the civil society and members of the populace who are not directly linked to the university through close ties endeavor to shape the institution from some remove, through appeals to elected representatives and social mobilization. A primary example of this dynamic can be seen in the series of neoliberal tax initiatives, such as California’s Proposition 13, that have created some of the most influential policies shaping public higher education in the United States. The relative distance of the populace from elite universities also has implications for the character of normative societal beliefs about the public and private goods produced through higher education. Those individuals without close ties to elite institutions are less likely to perceive direct private benefits from institutional action. Furthermore, the public goods that are generally put forward under the mission of higher education institutions— equitable access, innovation through research, economic development, leadership, and citizenship training—are likely to seem more abstract to members of the populace and those associations within the civil society without close ties to the institutions. In contrast, those social actors who have close ties to the institutions—current students, alumni, commercial interests, and State political leaders—receive both the direct private benefits of higher education and the public benefits that accrue to all. Over time, this process shifts normative perceptions throughout society, so that the most legitimate activity of elite institutions is understood to be the production of private goods. This, in turn, drives increased contest over postsecondary purposes, decreased levels of State economic support, challenges to the legitimacy of public higher education, and efforts to limit the autonomous status of elite institutions. This is also a mutually reinforcing process. As significant numbers of social actors withdraw support from universities, to a greater degree the institutions seek legitimacy and revenue from private interests, obligating them to increase their production of private goods and move even closer to interests seeking private benefits from higher education.

Politics, Power, and the Mobilization of Bias In the State project in the United States, political actors and activity mediate the organization and governance, structures and processes, resource allocations, and outcomes generated by institutions in the public sector. When we talk about the inability to create or preserve a public sphere, a space free of constraints imposed by powerful interests, we are essentially arguing that we have failed to create a space free of undue influence or, perhaps more to the point, free of imbalances of political influence and power.

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Steven Lukes (2005) has argued that there are three dimensions of power in creating ideological hegemony. The first dimension incorporates interest group competition, pluralist political negotiation, and the application of power through formal mechanisms. His second dimension draws from the work of Bachrach and Baratz (1970), on the mobilization of bias, the ways in which power is used to ensure that certain beliefs become instantiated over time throughout society, in political debate, public discourse, and State action. The third dimension points to the processes by which beliefs become so thoroughly embedded in political-economic logic that it would take a rare act of creativity to envision alternatives. These three dimensions are apparent in the rapid rise of neoliberal economic policies in the United States. One of the first waves in the sea of contemporary neoliberal tax policies emerged through the ballot initiative Proposition 13 in California in the mid-1970s, a time when considerable State investments in public institutions were fueled by individual and corporate tax revenue (Schrag, 1998). In a little more than three decades, narratives suggesting that taxes on income and wealth are inefficient and inappropriate have become so dominant in the political arena that someone born in the United States in the mid-1970s would have little reason to imagine a world where raising taxes to support public institutions and public projects was an option. Ideology, discourse, and practice have coalesced into a web of beliefs about State finance so deeply engrained that alternative arrangements are scarcely imaginable (Lukes, 2005). It is essentially the polar opposite of a public sphere through higher education.

Conclusion: The Public Sphere and the Counternarrative Though neoliberal policies have greatly reshaped the institutional and political economic contexts for elite universities in the United States and globally, there is still space for contest over postsecondary purposes and the creation of a public sphere through higher education. Of late, the contest has become increasingly polarized and strident. In the spring of 2010, thousands of students in some 30 states protested fee increases in the United States with tactics that included blocking buildings, boycotting classes, and disrupting transportation (Keller, 2010). Contemporary student protests echo what is arguably the most prominent case of efforts to realize a public sphere through higher education in the United States, the Free Speech Movement at the University of California and other prominent universities in the early 1960s. At Berkeley, in particular, the State, the institution, a variety of political interests, elements of the civil society, and individuals clashed. Then as now, the contest addressed the right to free expression, critical inquiry, access, and equity (Rorabaugh, 2002). The contemporary challenge is in how to create the conditions for the creation of a sustainable public sphere through higher education, one that invites contest without crisis.

Power and Authority in the Creation of a Public Sphere  •  41

Reconfiguring Authority Relations No elite university is uninfluenced by political and economic contest. Nor can one imagine any other political institution that is not subject to struggles over authority between interests with varying degrees of power and control. Accepting that reality means we cannot pine for a university free of politics, nor should we. What is to be desired is a recognition that creating a public sphere through higher education requires a balance of power and authority relations, one in which interests are sufficiently legitimate to hold one another in balance so that discussion, critique, and knowledge creation and dissemination, the things the university does at its best, can take place. Where power is unbalanced, there can be no sustained public sphere. Over the past three decades in the United States, neoliberal policies have had the effect of concentrating postsecondary authority in fewer hands. A number of specific transformations will be required to bring the four forces shaping the public sphere through higher education into balance. This is not to infer that the State, the market, the institutions themselves, or social actors are beyond reproach. Rather, it is that the university should serve as a site for informed contest over what is best about each of these forces and what needs to be transformed to achieve the full potential of postsecondary education going forward. Balancing Four Forces in Support of the Public Sphere A central issue that must be addressed is the effect of the contemporary neoliberal challenge to the legitimacy of the State. The State has several essential roles to play, in direct provision of higher education, through subsidies of public and private institutions and as a source of regulation to ensure that essential goals are realized. Realizing the public sphere through higher education will require restoring the legitimacy of the State in various aspects of the political economy, including higher education. The State approach to higher education in the United States has, at times, left much to be desired, but it has also accomplished many important transformations that might not have been realized had the evolution of the postsecondary system been left to other forces. A similar case can be made about elite universities themselves, institutions that can point to great historical successes and to many fundamental challenges that remain. Like the State, elite postsecondary institutions face a crisis of legitimacy, particularly as prestige competition and the seemingly insatiable demand for increased revenue moves them further from their traditional obligations to the public good. For the institutions to support the essential elements of a public sphere, they must not only confront their roles as sites of critique and contest; they must also acknowledge the degree to which their own actions shape the broader political economic struggle over the creation of a functioning public sphere in higher education and the broader society.

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In the wake of the market collapse of 2008, the utility of market models, of theories of competition, self-interest, efficient invisible hands, and accountability for higher education and global society, are facing a resurgence of skepticism. Given the growing body of research on the impact of academic capitalism on norms of university practice, it would seem appropriate to put the burden on those advocating neoliberal approaches to organization and finance to explain the recent global market failure and the ways in which higher education is made vulnerable. For more than three decades, State actors, many elements of the civil society, individuals with direct ties to universities, and the leaders of postsecondary institutions have deferred to market rhetoric. It is time to turn greater attention to market reality and to rein in its excessive influence on elite universities, not as a judgment but to create an opportunity for a measured discussion, critique, and analysis of the role of the market in higher education. A public sphere through higher education cannot be created without support from social actors and civil society. For centuries, individuals and families in the United States have supported elite higher education institutions in myriad ways, often without having ever attended such institutions or seeing a clear path to admission. This would suggest that many of those social actors who believed in, invested in, and defended higher education were not fundamentally in pursuit of private gain. Rather, many of those who were not directly involved with the postsecondary project, and many who were, believed in both public and private goods through higher education. Where the system has fallen short in providing access and opportunity and in equitably distributing the benefits of higher education, it has offered the promise of fuller and more equitable participation in the future. In the neoliberal moment, that future seems, to many, to be receding on the horizon rather than moving closer to the center of postsecondary policy. To restore that promise and to move closer to a public sphere through higher education, it is imperative for the State, market actors, and universities to close the distance between elite institutions, various elements of the civil society, and the populace, to move to a deeper form of engagement and partnership in discussion and decision making. In a short essay on the role of the critic, Adam Kirsch wrote, “This is my definition of ‘serious criticism,’ and I think it’s essentially the same today as it was 50 years ago: a serious critic is one who says something true about life and the world,” (Kirsch, 2011, p. 10). Much the same can be said for the role of the university in the twenty-first century and the importance of the public sphere through higher education. Elite public and private universities may liberate themselves by becoming zones of intellectual and political contest, spaces where critique, debate, knowledge creation, teaching, and learning can take place absent the constraints produced by imbalances of power. In that pursuit, a defining characteristic of great universities going forward will be that they

Power and Authority in the Creation of a Public Sphere  •  43

strive in all of their functions to understand the ways in which power shapes postsecondary education and the purposes to which it is turned. All too often, the various interests contending for control of the contemporary university seek to obtain rather than to illuminate power. To continue to allow that to happen will be to dim the light that universities have been charged, for so many years and across so many generations, to protect.

Notes 1 Though much of the argument in this chapter applies to a wide range of public and private universities, I focus on elite universities because of their prominence, influence, and significance in the U.S. political economy. In this chapter, I use the term elite universities or elite postsecondary institutions to refer to highly selective public and private research universities and liberal arts colleges. Although many of the arguments here apply most appropriately to elite public universities, many can also be applied to private research universities and liberal arts colleges, which are chartered, subsidized, and regulated by State action. 2 In this chapter, the capitalized form of the term State refers to “the web of relations between individuals and among social groups in a given societal arrangement shaped by historical traditions, culture, economic development and political processes” (Ordorika & Pusser, 2007, p. 191). The lowercase term state refers to one of the individual fifty states in the United States. 3 The use of the term public to describe individuals has generated some analytical confusion in research in higher education. Here I use public to refer to the social and conceptual space that is not private. 4 The University and Small Businesses Patent Procedures Act, known as the Bayh-Dole Act, was passed by Congress in 1980. The Act made it possible for universities to patent technology generated through research supported by federal grants (Weisbrod, Ballou, & Asch, 2008).

References Ambrozas, D. (1998). The university as a public sphere. Canadian Journal of Communication, 23 (1). Apple, M. (1982). Education and power. Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Astin, A. W., & Oseguera, L. (2004). The declining “equity” of American higher education. The Review of Higher Education, 27, 321–341. Bachrach, P., & Baratz, M. (1970). Power and poverty: Theory and practice. New York: Oxford University Press. Baldridge, J. V. (1971). Power and conflict in the university: Research in the sociology of complex organizations. New York: John Wiley and Sons. Becker, G. S. (1976). The economic approach to human behavior. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Berdahl, R. (1971). Statewide coordination in higher education. Washington, DC: American Council on Education. Bok, D. (2003). Universities in the marketplace. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A social critique of the judgment of taste. New York: Cambridge University Press. Bowles, S., & Gintis, H. (1976). Schooling in capitalist America. New York: Basic Books.

44  •  Brian Pusser Calhoun, C. (1992). Introduction: Habermas and the public sphere. In C. Calhoun (Ed.), Habermas and the public sphere. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Calhoun, C. (2006). The university and the public good. Thesis Eleven, 84, 7–43. Carnoy, M., & Levin, H. M. (1985). Schooling and work in the democratic state. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Castells, M. (2008). The new public sphere: Global civil society, communication networks, and global governance. ANNALS, American Academy of Political and Social Science (AAPSS), 616, 78–93. Centre for Civil Society, London School of Economics and Political Science (2011). Definition of Civil Society. Retrieved 4 March, 2011 from http://www.webarchive. org.uk/wayback/archive/20100820110538/http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/ CCS/introduction/default.htm. Clark, B. R. (1983). The higher education system: Academic organization in crossnational perspective. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Edwards, M. (2004). Civil society. Cambridge, England: Polity Press. Ehrenberg, R. G. (2000). Tuition rising: Why college costs so much. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Fraser, N. (1992). Rethinking the public sphere: A contribution to the critique of actually existing democracy. In C. Calhoun (Ed.), Habermas and the public sphere. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Friedman, B. (2009). Overmighty finance levies a tithe on growth (Is the economy benefiting from our financial system?). Financial Times. Retrieved August 27, 2010, from http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2de2b29a-9271-11de-b63b-00144feabdc0. html#axzz1AYZvrZKQ Friedman, M. F. (2002). Capitalism and freedom (40th anniversary ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Friedman, M., & Friedman, R. (1980). Free to choose: A personal statement. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Geiger, R. L. (2004). Knowledge and money. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Giroux, H. A. (2010). Academic unfreedom in America: Rethinking the university as a democratic public sphere. In E. J. Carvalho & D. B. Downing (Eds.), Academic freedom in the post-9-11 era (pp. 19–40). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Giroux, H. A., & Giroux, S. S. (2004). Take back higher education: Race, youth and the crisis of democracy in the post-civil rights era. New York: Palgrave. Gramsci, A. (1971). Selections from prison notebooks. New York: International Publishers. Habermas, J. (1962). The structural transformation of the public sphere. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Hayek, F. (1960). The constitution of liberty. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Hodgson, G. (2009). The myth of American exceptionalism. New Haven: Yale University Press. Hutchins, R. M. (1936). The higher learning in America. New Haven: Yale University Press. Keller, J. (2010). In a day of campus protests, California marchers take to the freeways. Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved March 4, 2010, from http://chronicle. com/article/In-a-Day-of-Campus-Protests/64538/ Kempner, K., & Jurema, A. L. (2006). Brazil’s local solutions to global problems. In R. A. Rhoads & C. A. Torres (Eds.), The university, state and market: The political economy of globalization in the Americas (pp. 221–249). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Power and Authority in the Creation of a Public Sphere  •  45 Kerr, C. (2001). The uses of the university (5th ed.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Kirp, D. L. (2003). Shakespeare, Einstein and the bottom line. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Kirsch, A. (2011). The will not to power but to self-understanding. New York Times, Sunday Book Review, p. BR10. January 2, 2011. Labaree, D. F. (1997). Public goods, private goods: The American struggle over educational goals. American Educational Research Journal, 34, 39–81. Labaree, D. F. (2000). No exit: public education as an inescapably public good. In L. Cuban & D. Shipps (Eds.), Reconstructing the common good in education (pp. 110–129). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Lowen, R. S. (1997). Creating the cold war university. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Lukes, S. (2005). Power: A radical view (2nd ed.). London: Macmillan. Mansbridge, J. (1998). On the contested nature of the public good. In W. W. Powell & E. S. Clemens (Eds.), Private action and the public good (pp. 3–19). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Marginson, S. (1997). Markets in education. Melbourne, Australia: Allen & Unwin. Marginson, S. (2007a). The new higher education landscape: Public and private goods, in global/national/local settings. In S. Marginson (Ed.), Prospects of higher education: Globalization, market competition, public goods and the future of the university (pp. 29–77). Rotterdam, Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Marginson, S. (2007b). Global university rankings. In S. Marginson (Ed.), Prospects of higher education: Globalization, market competition, public goods and the future of the university (pp. 79–100). Rotterdam, Netherlands: Sense Publishers. McClennen, S. A. (2010). Neoliberalism and the crisis of intellectual engagement. In E. J. Carvalho & D. B. Downing (Eds.), Academic freedom in the post-9-11 era (pp. 203–213). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. McDonough, P. M. (1997). Choosing colleges: How social class and schools structure opportunity. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Metcalfe, A. S. (2008). Theorizing research policy: A framework for higher education. In J. C. Smart (Ed.), Higher education: Handbook of theory and research (pp. 241– 276). Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer. Moe, T. (1996). The positive theory of public bureaucracy. New York: Cambridge University Press. Morrow, R. A., & Torres, C. A. (1995). Social theory and education: A critique of social and cultural reproduction. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Ordorika, I. (2003). Power and politics in university governance: Organization and change at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. New York: Routledge Falmer. Ordorika, I., & Pusser, B. (2007). La máxima casa de estudios: The Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México as a state-building university. In P. G. Altbach & J. Balán (Eds.), World class worldwide: Transforming research universities in Asia and Latin America (pp. 189–215). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Pusser, B. (2004). Burning down the house: Politics, governance and affirmative action at the University of California. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Pusser, B. (2006). Reconsidering higher education and the public good: The role of public spheres. In W. Tierney (Ed.), Governance and the public good (pp. 11–28). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

46  •  Brian Pusser Pusser, B. (2008). The state, the market and the institutional estate: Revisiting contemporary authority relations in higher education. In J. Smart (Ed.), Higher education: Handbook of theory and research (Vol. 23, pp. 105–139). New York: Agathon Press. Pusser, B., & Marginson, S. (forthcoming). The elephant in the room: Power, global rankings and the study of higher education organizations. In M. Bastedo (Ed.) Organizing higher education. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Pusser, B., Slaughter, S., & Thomas, S. L. (2006). Playing the board game: An empirical analysis of university trustee and corporate board interlocks, Journal of Higher Education, 77 (5), 747–775. Rhoades, G. (1992). Beyond “the state”: Interorganizational relations and state apparatus in postsecondary education. In J. C. Smart (Ed.), Higher education: Handbook of theory and research (pp. 84–192). New York: Agathon Press. Rhoades, G. (1998). Managed professionals: Unionized faculty and restructuring academic labor. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Rhoads, R. A., & Torres, C. A. (2006). The university, state, and market: The political economy of globalization in the Americas. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Rorabaugh, W. J. (2002). The FSM, Berkeley Politics and Ronald Reagan, in R. Cohen and R. E. Zelnik (Eds.), The free speech movement, reflections on Berkeley in the 1960s (pp. 511–518). Berkeley: University of California Press. Rudolph, F. (1965). The American college and university: A history. New York: Vintage Books. Savage, J. D. (1999). Funding science in America: Congress, universities, and the politics of the academic pork barrel. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Schrag, P. (1998). Paradise lost: California’s experience, America’s future. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Schugurensky, D. (2006). The political economy of higher education in the time of global markets: Whither the social responsibility of the university? In R. A. Rhoads & C. A. Torres (Eds.), The university, state, and market: The political economy of globalization in the Americas (pp. 301–320). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Slaughter, S. (1990). The higher learning and high technology: Dynamics of higher education policy formation. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Slaughter, S., & Leslie, L. L. (1997). Academic capitalism. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Slaughter, S., & Rhoades, G. (2004). Academic capitalism and the new economy. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Solorzano, D. (1998). Critical race theory, racial and gender microaggressions and the experiences of Chicana and Chicano scholars. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 11, 121–136. Tierney, W. G. (1991). Ideology and identity in postsecondary institutions. In W. G. Tierney (Ed.), Culture and ideology in higher education. New York: Praeger. Veblen, T. (1918). The higher learning in America: A memorandum on the conduct of universities by business men. New York: Sagamore Press. Weisbrod, B. A., Ballou, J. P., & Asch, E. D. (2008). Mission and money: Understanding the university. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. White House. (2009). Remarks by the president on the American graduation initiative, July 14, 2009. Retrieved January 5, 2011, from http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_ press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-on-the-American-Graduation-Initiative-inWarren-MI/

4

The Global Sorting Machine An Examination of Neoracism Among International Students and Postdoctoral Researchers

Jenny J. Lee and Brendan Cantwell

Introduction Universities find themselves at the nexus of seemingly competing, if not contradictory, demands in the global knowledge society. They are asked both to serve society through the production and dissemination of knowledge for the benefit of a global polity and to generate knowledge, skills, and status through individual human capital development. The global research university, which now must meet these needs and others in the global sphere, as well as in national and local spheres, to attain and maintain legitimacy (Marginson, 2010), is often positioned within this tension between public and private interests. Within the contest between public (as a fungible global good) and private (tied up in individuals’ human capital) knowledge pursuits (Metcalfe & Fenwick, 2009) is the relative positioning of individuals within the academy with varying rights and access to these public and private goods. This chapter takes up familiar terrain in contemporary research on higher education—the roles and experiences of educational migrants and knowledge workers—in an analysis of universities as sites that produce marketable human capital and wealth that are enjoyed by individuals and knowledge by intellectuals who are recruited to serve the public interest. We heed Marginson’s (2007) observations that public and private goods can be produced simultaneously and that these goods occur in global and national spheres. Yet, while acknowledging that the mix of public (social, 47

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nonrivalrous) and private (exclusive, competitive) goods generated by universities is dependent on context (Marginson, 2007), the mechanisms that determine who has access to such goods within global research universities have not been fully explored. Moreover, little work has addressed the extent to which international and intercultural relations are enmeshed within the systems that sort not only full engagement in the public sphere but also positions that afford the right to shape this sphere and further gain from the private benefits it yields (see Cantwell & Lee, 2010; Marginson & Sawir, 2005 as exceptions). In response, we take up the empirical case of international students enrolled at a global research university in the United States and international postdoctoral researchers employed at global research universities in the United States and the United Kingdom. In both instances, there is at least some entrée into the public spheres. Yet we find that there is unequal participation and, consequently, limited access to private goods and to authority in the production of public goods, with this access stratified by country of origin. In this analysis, we build on our previous work that details individual experiences and endemic structural patterns of neoracism and nationalism in and around the global academy (Cantwell & Lee, 2010; Lee & Rice, 2007; Lee, 2010; Lee & Opio, in press; Maldonado-Maldonado & Cantwell, 2008). We argue that neoracism—a system of national hierarchy that is attached to individuals—is a sorting mechanism, or filter, that determines on a discriminatory basis who in the university has full access to the public sphere and the private goods it produces. In the next section of this chapter, we begin with an introduction on the contributions and traditional roles of international students and postdoctoral scholars, to set the foundation for the following sections. Next, we describe neoracism and review how the concept has been used in higher education research. We then address how the concept of neoracism reshapes our understanding of who has access to the public sphere and consequences for the extent of private benefits, using specific examples from our past research. We conclude with a discussion of the implications.

Background International students and scholars bring unquestionable benefits to the host institution and country, yet their roles and what they have to offer are in some ways different. We discuss some of their contributions, which have both public and private value. International students are typically viewed as consumers of education but also increase the diversity, and related benefits of added cultural perspectives, of the classroom and local community. International postdoctoral scholars, on the other hand, may include individuals seeking added training (i.e., postdoctoral scholars [postdocs]),

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but they function primarily to increase knowledge for the benefit of the host country. As institutions and nations seek to compete in a global knowledge society, recruiting international talent is a common means by which to address domestic skill shortages. International Students International students generate many public and private goods for the host institution and country. Among them, the international student market has considerable private value. In pure economic terms, it is estimated that the more than 600,000 international students and their families contribute over $15 billion annually to the U.S. national economy (Institute of International Education, 2009). Institutions generate tuition revenues, and national and community businesses make sales to international students who consume food, housing, transportation, and other goods. International students also increase the diversity of student populations, add new perspectives to classroom conversations, and increase all students’ awareness and appreciation for other countries and cultures (Bevis, 2002; Harrison, 2002). Such intercultural interactions and awareness may generate such public goods as tolerance (Marginson, 2007). They bring knowledge and skills in many fields, especially within sciences, engineering, and technology (Altbach, 1989, 1998; Barber & Morgan, 1987; Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004). The benefits of their human capital are immediately captured by the institutions in which they reside, and their contributions to scientific discovery and innovation have potential for wider benefit. Those who stay further add to the intellectual capital of the host country, and those who return home most often do so with goodwill and affinity for their “second home.” Moreover, in the area of foreign policy, the United States and other developed nations’ institutions educate many of those who take leadership positions in other nations, which ultimately may benefit relations between countries (Altbach, 1998; National Association of Foreign Student Advisors, 2003). States and nonstate organizations such as United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and the Organsation for Economic Cooperation and Development encourage educational migration. In the United States, accounts of domestic shortages of science and technology professionals claim that the U.S. global economic position will be substantially eroded if more scientists and engineers are not developed, including importing scientists from abroad. One such report, Rising Above the Gathering Storm (Committee on Prospering in the Global Economy of the 21st Century, 2007), a National Academies publication, calls for increasing the scientific workforce in part through recruitment of international students. Such calls are indicative of a trend among developed countries of using international

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education as a vehicle for attracting skilled migrants (Tremblay, 2005). Students are sought as temporary educational migrants and potential longterm immigrants for their labor, skills, and innovation in order for states to reap the economic fruits of their knowledge, work, and intellectual potential. Home countries also encourage educational migration through either formal or informal mechanisms. Government scholarships to pursue a degree abroad, such as by El Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (The National Council of Science and Technology) (CONACYT) in Mexico, are examples of how home countries encourage educational migration formally. Informally, the prestige and potential for opportunities associated with holding a foreign, and especially a U.S. degree, are strong pulls for students to travel abroad for their studies. International Postdoctoral Scholars Postdocs have been traditionally understood as PhDs in training to become faculty (National Research Council [NRC], 1969, 2005), those who ultimately have the authority to produce public goods within universities. Yet shifts in the global political economy and corresponding academic capitalist modes of production have largely reshaped their work from specialized academic trainees to temporary scientific employees whose production is more privately than publicly oriented (Cantwell & Lee, 2010). Although some postdocs eventually manage to advance to the faculty profession—in many science fields, completing postdoctoral training is now a necessary but insufficient step toward becoming an autonomous academic professional (Science, 2002)—the large supply of PhDs compared to the few faculty positions available has resulted in many postdocs remaining so indefinitely, with limited participation in the public sphere as compared to faculty. Postdoctoral expansion as a result of PhD oversupply has long been understood (Zumeta, 1985), though the odds of a postdoc becoming a faculty member appear now to be longer than ever before (Hoffer, Grigorian, & Hedberg, 2008; Nerad & Cerny, 1999). As the postdoctoral position has transformed from a training period leading to a more or less guaranteed secure academic career, it also has massified and internationalized. There are now more postdocs than ever before (corresponding to the expansion of doctoral education worldwide), the postdoctorate as an institution has spread beyond the United States where it was developed, and researchers are increasingly crossing borders to take postdoctoral posts (NRC, 2005). In the United States, international postdocs account for just over half of the 50,000-plus postdocs employed at research universities (National Science Foundation, 2007); and in the United Kingdom, a substantial minority (approximately 40%) of all postdocs come from abroad (Ackers & Gill, 2005). Governments, including the United States

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and United Kingdom, tacitly encourage the emigration of postdocs and other academic workers through immigration policies that privilege universities’ ability to source skilled labor abroad when compared to industry. This trend can be understood critically through a world systems approach (Altbach, 2004); the contemporary global economy has further shaped academic flows with postdocs from Asia seeking postdoc positions in North America and Western Europe.

Neoracism Accounts that celebrate the public and private goods generated by educational migration aside (see Florida, 2005; Saxenian, 2006), research has also uncovered the shadowy side of human migration. With increased global mobility from developing to developed countries, we have witnessed selective resistance to particular migratory groups. Whether they might be Arabs from North Africa entering Western Europe or Mexicans entering the United States, migrants, including educational migrants, have been subject to differing entrance requirements based on their country of origin. Once particular groups have entered, they are further subject to discrimination and mistreatment based on stereotypes about their home country, as this chapter details. Previous research has well documented the challenges that international students face in their educational host environment (Marginson, Nyland, Sawir, & Forbes-Mewett, 2010). Difficulties in their social integration, including loneliness (Sawir, Marginson, Deumert, Nyland, & Ramia, 2007) and social isolation (Hechanova-Alampay, Beehr, Christiansen, and van Horn, 2002; Robertson, Line, Jones, & Thomas, 2000; Sanner, Wilson, & Samson, 2002) have been noted as among the greatest challenges for students living abroad. Related problems in adaptation to the host culture (Heggins & Jackson, 2003) due to cultural differences in time and gender roles (Pritchard & Skinner, 2002), for example, complicate both their social and academic integration. Academic obstacles related to language proficiency (Robertson et al., 2000; Sanner et al., 2002) and confusing enrollment procedures (Lloyd, 2003) lead to delays or disruption in international students’ academic progress (Li & Kaye, 1998). Previous research has also suggested a mismatch between international students’ expectations and realities on arrival at the host destination (Lee & Rice, 1997; Lee & Opio, in press). Though most of the preceding studies acknowledge the problem of international students’ “inability” to successfully “integrate” into the host organization, the universities and local communities rarely are examined for ways that they may create the very barriers that make adjustment especially difficult for these students. Although there is considerably less research on the experiences of international postdocs, “forced mobility” based on temporary contracts

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and pay differentials (Ackers, 2008, p. 415) will likely sustain global postdoc flows of scholars from developing countries toward developed countries. Furthermore, a number of observers have noted that international postdocs are highly productive researchers but may face exploitative working conditions marked by insecurity, low wages, unclear prospects for advancement, and long working hours (Corley & Sabharwal, 2007; SmithDoerr, 2006; Stephan, 2005). To assess the varying experiences and opportunity structures that international students and scholars face, we use the concept of neoracism. Whereas racism is traditionally based on one’s physical appearance and stereotypes associated with an individual’s race, neoracism extends racism to include stereotypes about one’s country of origin. Neoracism is based on the perception of superiority of cultures and national order (Balibar, 1992; Barker, 1981; Hervik, 2004; Spears, 1999) and efforts to maintain racial hierarchies of oppression (Spears, 1999). Attempts to preserve one’s national identity therefore seemingly justifies the marginalization of particular groups in a globalizing world. According to neoracism, the racial experiences of Africans and Asians, for example, are qualitatively different from the racial experiences of their hyphenated American counterparts. A Chinese migrant with limited command of the English language is subject to greater discrimination associated with stereotypes of China than is a U.S. citizen of Chinese descent. Though both may encounter racism, the migrant may have a very different set of experiences because of his or her closer affiliation with China. Lee and Rice (2007) were the first to introduce the concept of neoracism to the higher education literature as a framework to critically examine why some international students encounter greater difficulties than others. They found that students from developing regions (i.e., Latin America, Africa, and Asia) were especially subject to discrimination and harassment in the form of verbal insults, negative stereotypes, and physical attacks as compared to international students from Western and English-speaking countries in Europe, Canada, and Australasia. Though both sets of international students were prone to encountering barriers in moving and settling into a foreign university, students of color from non-Western regions of the world faced considerable prejudice that appeared to stem from negative stereotypes about their home countries. Thus, neoracism has been adapted as a theory in educational research by which to understand some of the racialized experiences of these international students. In the present study, we extend neoracism beyond the experiences of individual educational migrants to address how systems of neoracism in part determine who has access to the goods generated by global research universities, particularly the private goods, as well as access to and authority in relation to positions associated with the production of knowledge for the

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public good. We argue that embedded within academic capitalism production systems, neoracist systems act as switching devices, steering some migrants to global research universities into some markets and denying access to others. We demonstrate this point with empirical examples from a study on international students. We further argue that neoracism sorts those who are considered suitable to act as intellectuals and produce knowledge for the public good, and those who are considered suitable to engage in scientific knowledge work. We demonstrate this point with empirical examples from a study of international postdocs. Neoracism Among International Students Neoracism acts as a system that denies international students, especially those from developing and non-Western countries, access to some networks and resources that could enhance the value of their degrees and educational experiences (i.e., private benefits) within the public sphere of global research universities. This filter occurs not through a single coordinated and consciously deliberate act, but through idiosyncratic acts of neoracism that alienate individuals and groups of students from resources available within global research universities. In what follows, we draw on qualitative data from a study of 24 international student experiences conducted at a single global research university in the United States (Lee & Rice, 2007). The interview sample included both undergraduate and graduate students from a range of 10 different academic fields and 15 national backgrounds. We used these data to demonstrate differing patterns of access to the public sphere and to elaborate on neoracism in higher education. The international students in this study were keenly aware of differential treatment they received as compared to domestic students. For graduate students, access to research opportunities are extremely valuable. Such opportunities, most often in the form of research assistantships, which typically provide a remission of fees, a living stipend, and health insurance, all of which lower the cost of a degree, shift the return over cost ratio of postgraduate training. Moreover, research assistantships provide value trading not available in the classroom and extend students’ academic and professional networks, leading potentially to better job opportunities after graduation. Students from developing countries were often denied access to the best research assistantship opportunities and the greatest benefit from these opportunities, not necessarily because of their ability but because of their nation of origin. Take the example of an Indian graduate student. She explained, “I think that [there are] only two American students [in my department] and [the professors are] just extremely mean to us [international students]. They know that as foreign students we have limited recourses.”

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She noted occasions on which international students in her department were denied employment or fired from research jobs and lost favor with faculty. She elaborated: We cannot go into the department or visit the university [offices] and stuff like that. So they hold the funding … and I managed to buck them very easily because I’m very outspoken. I am not being a bigot or stereotyping here but a lot of the Chinese students will take the stuff more quietly. They have the same issue I had and a few of them left. I decided to speak up. So my contract had said I had ¼ time funding. When I came here I asked for ½ time and I got ½ time. But as soon as I managed to cut them off (by speaking out)….they immediately cut off my funding and they forced me to look for something else. They do this for everybody [and] it’s not like they targeted me. They do that for all foreign students. This student later explained that she tried to file a formal complaint to no avail and that some attempts were thwarted. She further explained: A foreign student finds it more difficult to get a job than the American students. The [faculty] understand that. The fact that they understand that [and] the students understand that for them the American students work at [negotiating] the price …. The foreign students are like, “Yeah, whatever [salary is offered is accepted].” …They treat you like the scum of the earth… This student believed that she and other international students were denied the best research assistantships, fullest funding, and preferred working conditions. Moreover, she believed that when students complain about their mistreatment they are punished, and hierarchy has developed within her department in which students from some countries (in this case, China) are preferred over students from other countries (India) because they are perceived to be more passive and less likely to contest the less desirable working conditions that are given to international students. Whether Chinese students are less likely than Indian students to protest their lot is not as important as the stereotype that Chinese are passive, which is attached to individual students from China. When this stereotype is enacted through neoracist hiring practices, Chinese students may be given jobs from which Indian students are filtered out, but they are given these jobs under conditions that are, at least according to the student just quoted, perceived as exploitative. Research also uncovered institutional policies that limited university employment for international students as compared to their domestic counterparts. International graduate students, from China especially, cited differential opportunities in teaching jobs, noting that very few international

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graduate students were offered such positions and, when they were granted, the recipients were subject to intense scrutiny by students for their foreign accents. According to a Chinese woman, she was one of two students dropped from a project that was funding her education. The other dropped individual, a domestic student, was compensated for the loss of financial support with a large scholarship, but the Chinese woman was left in a precarious financial position. These events not only caused financial insecurity for the student quoted earlier but also forced her to change her degree program from hydrology to chemistry. Hydrology is a more specialized field of study that may have offered her access to more desired jobs after graduation. Though neoracist encounters appear to be idiosyncratic, they also are perceived to be condoned by university officials who have greater levels of structural power. No student interviewed had ever reported any mistreatment to a university official. As one male Chinese student majoring in East Asian Studies shared, “There is a lot of mistreatment… I ask (my Chinese friends who are discriminated) to talk to Dean but most swallow their fear because more conflict, no power, and may lose their [teaching assistant] position and financial support.” He explained the following expectations: “You have to work hard. You’re overworked and you get low pay and want to keep your positions and if overworked, everyone has to conform.” When later asked what he would recommend to future international students, he advised, “They need to be prepared to have bad experiences in language, culture, and you have to know the rules of the game or you’ll be killed.” Neoracist encounters not only deny students direct access to university employment and resources but also can place them in uncomfortable situations that alienate them from networks and create a distance between students and their advisors that may inhibit learning and professional development. Intercultural relations can pose a particular challenge when it comes to gender. Female Asian students may be particular targets of unwanted sexual advances from faculty, which prevents them from feeling comfortable and developing full relationships with faculty advisors. A female Japanese student of art history shared, “I have had some problems with some professors. I mean like I got here—they don’t respect women. They talk about sex and ask me about my sexual experiences and [are] really inappropriate.” Though some casual conversations may be subject to misunderstanding as a result of cultural norms about gender roles and culturally taboo topics, some discussions between students and professors, such as this latter example, are universally off-limits. It may be that faculty members act on the stereotype that Asian woman are submissive and so they feel free to make sexual advances on these women. Furthermore, even if this particular professor’s intentions were not to take advantage of the student, a lack of regard for international students’ cultural sensitivities may be considered one form of neoracism. In this case, making the student uncomfortable around faculty

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members inhibited the student’s ability to develop professional relationships with faculty that might be used in the future to advance her career. The neoracism framework helped to identify the way that international students were excluded from financial support and academic opportunities, which indirectly undermined some international students’ capacity to become fully participating members of their host intellectual community. Disadvantaging institutional policies, hostility toward cultural attributes (e.g., language barriers and foreign accents), and the negative stereotyping of whole nations or cultures hinder intercultural diplomacy and obstruct intellectual growth and access to jobs and opportunities, preventing some international students from maximizing the benefits of their education abroad. Academic capitalism predicts that universities and faculty within universities will seek to maximize market efficiencies by extracting efficiencies and labor from students without fully investing in their education (Slaughter & Leslie, 1997; Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004). Neoracist encounters act as a filtering system that separates students based on their nation of origin, allowing international students, especially those from Asia and other non-Western countries, to be especially excluded from the opportunities that could maximize the value they might derive from their education in a global research university. Global research universities passively attract and actively recruit students from around the world. Large numbers of students from non-Western countries, including many from Asia, arrive at major U.S. universities as educational migrants to undertake a course of study, often at the graduate level. These students are sought after because they are productive workers and fee-paying students and confer legitimacy on the institution as an internationalized global university. In this sense, research universities in the United States, many of which can be considered global research universities, are global public spaces where people and ideas from around the world circulate. Yet as we have shown, access to the private goods associated with study at global research universities is limited for students from some parts of the world. Neoracism Among International Postdoctoral Scholars We now turn our analyses to international postdocs (also known as postdoctoral research associates, postdoctoral fellows, and other titles) in the United States and the United Kingdom. This portion of our chapter is drawn from a larger study on postdocs (see Cantwell, 2009; Cantwell & Lee, 2010) that included 49 interviews at four research universities (two in the United States and two in the United Kingdom) with faculty members, international postdocs in life sciences and engineering fields, and administrators involved with international affairs. We draw on these interviews to demonstrate

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that neoracism acts as a filtering device within systems of postdoctoral employment, allowing some postdocs access to positions that yield professional security and privilege as well as the potential to act as arbiters of what knowledge is produced in the public sphere of global research universities. Particular groups of international postdocs working at U.S. and U.K. universities, especially postdocs from Asia, are denied full access to professors-in-training status but are instead treated as knowledge workers performing wage labor. This not only thwarts individuals’ career progression but also works to establish who is afforded the right to be an autonomous producer of knowledge and who is not. Hand in hand with the structural portion of international postdocs within the global market for academic labor are cultural stereotypes and patterns of neoracism, which differentially shape international postdocs’ working conditions and experiences. We found that Asian postdocs were perceived and treated differently by their faculty supervisors as compared to their European peers (Cantwell & Lee, 2010). Neoracism helps to explain the uneven expectations and experiences of postdocs depending on their country of origin, which further explains the larger pattern of global flows. We believe that these neoracist practices and experiences are acting as a mechanism for sorting out different types of academic labor within global research universities based on the worker’s country of origin. Postdocs from North America, Australasia, and Western Europe appear to be given more professional opportunities and greater access to positions with which they are valued for the production of public knowledge rather than private labor. Faculty members who hire postdocs seek researchers who can immediately contribute to research, act semi-autonomously, and work creatively in the production of new knowledge. However, the assessment of postdoctoral candidates’ potential to meet these requirements is often not based on individual abilities or performance but on assumptions founded on the national position of higher education worldwide, which are connected to cultural stereotypes and limit the opportunities for some researchers to participate in knowledge production at global research universities. Take, for example, one United States-based engineering professor’s account of how he screens postdoc applications: So, you are really looking to get people who will get started ASAP. Especially from that stand point, you want people who are extremely independent and who can do their work with minimal guidance and furthermore, be creative in that process. So, all that… I think a research education in the U.S. is greatly beneficial for all those things… Graduate education for India or China… I’m never 100% sure how independent the person was … The top notch candidates do seem to

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be going abroad for their PhDs so somebody who actually stays on in their own institution in Asia, especially Asia, one would ask, “Why did that person not explore opportunities abroad?” This professor questioned the intellectual capacity of postdocs who were trained in Asia, believing that graduate education in countries such as China and India is not as rigorous as that in the United States and that remaining in Asia for doctoral work is a sign of intellectual deficits, which raises suspicion about a candidate’s potential. Yet many professors expressed a preference for hiring postdocs from Asia. Findings from our research indicate that Asians, in contrast to other postdocs—especially those from Europe—in particular are perceived as “hard workers” and “good technicians” but as lacking the more sophisticated theoretical understandings to become faculty members and independently generate knowledge for public consumption. This is often expressed in discussions of independence, which we read as closely connected to Anglo-American notions of intellectual value. In this way, Asian postdocs are employed for their specialized skills and abilities but are valued for their work capacity above their potential as knowledge generators. One British biology professor explained that he preferred hiring postdocs from China because they “work their socks off.” This attitude was confirmed by the experiences of Asian postdocs. As a Korean postdoc working in the United States explained, “I think many American [principle investigators] hire us [Asian postdocs] because they expect us to be quiet people who like to work hard.” Some find distinctions in the positions obtained and the career prospects of postdocs from different parts of Asia. Take, for example, the comparison of Chinese and Indian postdocs by a science administrator in the United States who is responsible for a postdoctoral program in the biomedical sciences: I think the Indians have the advantage of knowing the language and that gives them the ambition to aim higher and I think over the past 30–40 years you can see that Indians have really established themselves as faculty, they have their labs. Still, it is not as high as Americans of course. But I think especially in the field of computer science there are more faculty. Not in the biological sciences, we have a couple of, you know, we have a department head who is an Indian here and so they move up, Indians do move up eventually. I don’t know of any Indian who has remained a postdoc all of their life [in contrast to Chinese postdocs]. According to her, Indian postdocs in the United States are in a better position than Chinese postdocs to advance in their career and reap private rewards from the public sphere of global research universities. However, in establishing this hierarchy of nations based on language skills and cultural familiarity, she is clear to point out that both Indian and Chinese students

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have fewer chances of career advancement than their American counterparts. Moreover, she indicates that neoracist assumptions not only limit scientists’ probability of being recognized as autonomous knowledge producers based on nation of origin but that nationalities and disciplines intersect. According to her, Indians are often seen as potential computer scientists but not as potential biologists. This suggests that intercultural assumptions are at play in the organization of academic labor that help to sort who has access to what sorts of positions and under what conditions. Cultural stereotypes that position scientists as knowledge workers or skilled technicians with a high capacity for work may benefit Asians in being initially hired as postdocs but appear not to lead to equity in ability to advance to autonomous faculty positions and may also place restraints on employment conditions as postdocs. An engineer from China working as a postdoc in the United Kingdom believed that her supervisor’s “attitude” about where and how she should work differed from his attitude about a European postdoc with whom she worked: My colleague come into the office probably not often, kind of work at home and that is acceptable [sic]. I am not sure if they would say anything but I feel that if I do the same thing then probably I would be in trouble. It is unclear whether this engineer would be able to work at home as did her colleague, but her observation that her working conditions differ from her colleague’s conditions speaks to the power of neoracist perceptions and the extent to which they shape the conditions of work for international postdocs, who cede private rights when accessing the public sphere and are converted from potential autonomous scientists into subordinate knowledge workers, who engage in wage labor under direct supervision. Whereas Lee and Rice (2007) examine neoracism from the perspective of international students, our analysis of international postdocs helps to demonstrate how neoracism acts as a filtering system, differentiating access within a global public space. Cultural stereotypes about countries are attached to individual postdocs and, through idiosyncratic acts of neoracism, often block postdocs from Asia and other developing regions from access to the types of work and positions that will both yield the greatest individual rewards and best position them to help determine what knowledge is produced at global research universities.

Discussion Global research universities are not unproblematic spaces with universal access to the goods they generate for both public and private consumption. Despite the many public and private benefits that international students and

60  •  Jenny J. Lee and Brendan Cantwell

postdocs contribute and reap, the extent to which all educational migrants are afforded access to the same social and professional privileges is questionable. Whereas the flow of educational migrants continues to increase with no signs of ceasing, previous research has well documented different educational experiences based on the region of origin. In particular, students and postdocs from developing countries have experienced a host of challenges that raise questions about the extent to which they are able to participate in the public sphere and benefit from the private goods it produces. We argue that unequal treatment, and corresponding unequal access to the private goods and the positions from which public goods are most readily produced, is determined by a neoracist system that sorts out educational migrants, at least in part, based on where they originate. Neoracism helps to explain such regional differences as it manages the flow of incoming educational migrants and sorts the intellectuals (or potential intellectuals, in the case of students) from workers. Discriminatory practices in the classroom, limited access to research and teaching opportunities, and nonintellectual work assigned to specific postdocs all suggest that neoracism does not simply explain anecdotal individual encounters. Rather, neoracism may be at play in the larger uneven structures that affect full participation in the public sphere. In this chapter, we have presented data to elaborate on how neoracist systems operate as filters or switching devices that sort students and postdocs by the types of goods they may access. Without question, access to a global research university yields at least some utility for students from around the world. Yet a classic question in higher education research is “access to what?” Even within a single global research university, the assorted goods available to students do not all yield the same outcomes. Clearly, some degree programs have greater financial returns—for example, postgraduate degrees versus undergraduate degrees, and degrees in fields closer to markets such as science, engineering, and business versus the arts, humanities, and many social sciences (Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005). There are other, less obvious, points of access that dramatically affect students’ financial and professional well-being, as well as the level of utility and satisfaction they derive from their education. Likewise, we have demonstrated how postdocs are professionally stratified and groomed, whether as knowledge workers or public intellectuals. As institutions will continue to compete in a global market, international students and scholars play an important part in generating both financial and social goods. What often remains largely unconsidered, however, are the experiences of these individuals, particularly those originating from the developing world, and how their educational outcomes and professional trajectories are negatively impacted by neoracism. This raises important questions about global research universities. These institutions

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do generate knowledge consumed by global polities (directly or indirectly) and participate in human capital development at a global level. Yet even as these institutions cross the boundaries of nation-states in their role as knowledge and human capital generators, the boundaries of nation-states persist as structures that discriminate access and distribute resources within the public sphere of global research universities. In uncovering the human side of higher education migration, we call for greater awareness and action to address current systemic inequalities.

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The Global Sorting Machine  •  63 National Research Council [NRC]. (2005). Policy implications of international graduate students and postdoctoral scholars in the United States. Washington, DC: National Academies Press. National Science Foundation [NSF]. (2007). Survey of graduate students and postdoctorates in science and engineering. Arlington, VA: NSF. Nerad, M., & Cerny, J. (1999). Postdoctoral patterns, career advancement, and problems. Science, 285 (5433), 1533–1535. Pascarella, E., & Terenzini, P. (2005). How college affects students: A third decade of research. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Pritchard, R. M. O., & Skinner, B. (2002) Cross-cultural partnerships between home and international students. Journal of Studies in International Education, 6 (4): 323–354. Robertson, M., Line, M., Jones, S., & Thomas, S. (2000). International students, learning environments and perceptions: A case study using the Delphi technique. Higher Education Research and Development, 19 (1), 89–102. Sanner, S., Wilson, A. H., & Samson, L. F. (2002). The experiences of international nursing students in a baccalaureate nursing program. Journal of Professional Nursing, 18 (4), 206–213. Sawir, E., Marginson, S., Deumert, A., Nyland, C., & Ramia, G. (2007). Loneliness and international students: An Australian study. Journal of Studies in International Education, 1028315307299699. Retrieved January 10, 2010, from http://jsi. sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/1028315307299699v1 Saxenian, A. L. (2006). The new Argonauts: Regional advantage in a global economy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Science. (2002). NIH grantees: Where have all the young ones gone? Science, 282 (4, October), 40–41. Slaughter, S., & Leslie, L. (1997). Academic capitalism: Politics, policies and the entrepreneurial university. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Slaughter, S., & Rhoades, G. (2004). Academic capitalism and the new economy: Markets, state, and higher education. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Smith-Doerr, L. (2006). Stuck in the middle: Doctoral education ranking and career outcomes for life scientists. Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society, 26 (3), 243–255. Spears, A. (1999). Race and ideology: An introduction. In A. Spears (Ed.), Race and ideology: Language, symbolism, and popular culture (pp. 11–59). Detroit, MI: Wayne State Press. Stephan, P. (2005). Job market effects on scientific productivity. Paper presented at the Conference on the Future of Science, September 2005, Venice, Italy. Retrieved March 29, 2011 from http://www.cso.edu/upload/PDF_rencontres/SEM_ES_ Paula-Stephan.pdf Tremblay, K. (2005). Academic mobility and immigration. Journal of Studies in International Education, 9 (3), 196–228. Zumeta, W. (1985). Expanding the academic latter: The changing quality and value of postdoctoral study. Boston: Lexington Books.

5

Reconsidering the Realities of the International Student Market A Perspective from Japan and East Asia

Akiyoshi Yonezawa and Hugo Horta

Introduction Student mobility across borders has been one of the main foci of higher education research over the last two decades. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and United National Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), 3.3 million tertiary education students were enrolled outside the countries of their citizenship in 2008 (OECD, 2010). The internationalization of higher education systems had, in terms of their student population, followed various rationales—more competitive or collaborative oriented, even in the same regions of the world. Internationalization initiatives in higher education have been driven by many supranational, national, and institutional initiatives under diversified ideas on higher education as public and positioning goods in global competition (Horta, 2009; Marginson & van der Wende, 2007). In the Asia-Pacific region, student mobility tends to be guided by a market-oriented approach (Mok, 2007). There, the international mobility of students is supported by the private resources of students and their families, and the number of students who get public support to study abroad is highly limited. The importance attributed to acquiring advanced education abroad and the family’s or student’s own ability to support such study transformed the Asian region into the largest international student market in the world. According to the OECD’s Education at a Glance (2010), the share of international students originating from Asia is now 49.9%. 65

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Having the English language as the official language is clearly an advantage in attracting students in such a market-oriented context. The English language is being increasingly recognized as the lingua franca in the globalized knowledge labor market and in research-oriented postgraduate education. As has the United Kingdom in Europe, Australia has been highly successful in attracting international students with little public support and has developed a model to establish the country’s English-based higher education programs as an important export service industry. Some non-English-speaking countries, such as the Netherlands, are currently providing a significant number of programs in English. Top Korean universities are also trying to increase the number of classes conducted in English, but this increase is mainly due to the high demand of domestic students and industry for learning opportunities to be internationally competitive symbolic analysts. However, being an English-speaking country does not necessarily lead to the development of an exceedingly internationalized higher education system. The United States as a world economic and scientific powerhouse and an English-speaking country, holds the largest share of international students (18.7% of the international students in the world; OECD, 2010). However, the share of international students within the U.S. higher education system is only 3.4%. This results from a highly unbalanced distribution of international students between leading world-class universities, including other highly regarded institutions with specific international characteristics and other universities more oriented toward the domestic and, in most cases, state local student market. Whereas the internationalization of Australian and U.K. universities leans mainly toward first-degree international students, the internationalization of U.S. universities and, in particular, U.S. research universities, is strongly oriented to postgraduate education and research. Despite the advantage of using English in courses to attract international students in tertiary education, having an English-dominated learning environment as the single or best model to foment the internationalization of higher education systems can lead to a narrow perception on the subject. On this point, Japan is an interesting example, as the country attracts a relatively high share of the world’s international students (3.8%) regardless of the highly limited use of the Japanese language outside the country and the very limited provision of university education in the English language. (At 2.9%, the share of international students in the Japanese higher education system is slightly smaller [OECD, 2010].) Japan, as well as Korea, has a large private higher education sector for domestic students and faces increasing pressure to internationalize its higher education system for two main reasons: demographic change (an aging population) and the need to adapt and further integrate a globalized economy. Historically, the role of public policies in some East Asian countries and regions (Japan, the Philippines, Korea, Taiwan, and possibly Thailand),

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especially in terms of finance, has been small in the expansion of these higher education systems, whereas examples from other countries indicate that strong support from public policies toward internationalizing higher education and scientific systems is essential for improving international competitiveness in the current context (Horta, 2010). The question arising here relates to understanding how a country such as Japan managed to establish a relatively influential position in terms of student mobility within a market-oriented context and whether the current model will prove sustainable in the future. By combining the analyses of policy documents and the results of institutional surveys directed toward university graduates in Japanese higher education, the authors examine the actual features of the international student market as perceived in Japan and argue for further public commitment to higher education in a global society.

Background In Japan, market-based private higher education relying on tuition fees without substantial public support had already begun before the introduction of the modern university and other higher education systems by the second half of the nineteenth century (Kaneko, 2004). On establishing a modern, Western-type government in 1868, Japan had to develop its modern higher education system with a very limited pool of human resources based on Western academic models. The Japanese government adopted a strategy to concentrate public investment in higher education on a limited number of schools and universities to train high-quality government officials and professionals necessary for developing a modern state. This policy (i.e., investment in a small number of internationally viable institutions) became a model for other Asian countries in developing world-class universities and mass higher education systems. Based on a continuous policy of numerus clausus in public higher education institutions and a large market of students wishing to attain qualifications for modern professional jobs, a large number of private universities emerged to meet the demand for tertiary education. As one of the great world powers before World War II, Japan expanded its higher education system, based on its own language (Japanese), to its overseas territories (Taiwan, Korea, etc.) and de facto subject states, such as Manchuria. After Japan lost these territories through its defeat in World War II, many Japanese researchers availed themselves of opportunities to study in the United States and Europe to improve their academic skills and credentials, but the instruction in the Japanese language remained strong only in Japan. The rapid adoption of mass higher education by the 1960s and the growing national academic research capacity reinforced this practice. Also in support of this practice, the labor market for Japanese higher education graduates has historically demanded little knowledge in languages

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other than Japanese. It was only in the early 1980s that the Japan Committee for Economic Development began to require tertiary education curricula changes to prepare Japanese students to become a more internationalized labor force (Iiyoshi, 2008). At that time, the Japanese economy was transforming itself into a global economic powerhouse based on a strong manufacturing sector. The spread of businesses and manufacturing facilities by Japanese enterprises around the globe required mobile highly qualified professionals, although limited in number—mainly managers and engineers—who could cope with economic, social, and cultural differences and could communicate in foreign languages. However, as compared to the massive emigration diasporas of neighboring Asian countries, Japanese emigration to other countries continued to be negligible. An example of this is that, in the 1980s, many prestigious universities and secondary schools developed special admission procedures for students (mostly Japanese) educated outside Japan. In many cases, those students were proficient in a foreign language but were not well prepared to face the demanding university entrance examinations, which are conducted in Japanese. Goodman (1990) identified this trend as the emergence of a new social class because these students also had to be able to successfully (re)enter the Japanese education system. For those Japanese parents working outside Japan who wished to prepare their children to work in Japanese business firms, pushing the children into Japanese universities with strong linkages with Japanese corporations through long-established social networks was seen as more advantageous. Still today, the ultimate goal of Japanese parents for their children is for the children to attend prestigious universities, which are usually the oldest and those with the most consolidated links with large Japanese corporations. The importance gained by these universities is explained by the long-established concentration of public funding in a reduced number of public universities, the maintenance of limited numerus clausus, and the ability of these universities to maintain highly selective standards in admitting students, associated with the long-standing tradition to supply highly trainable talent to the government and major Japanese corporations. Most firms based or operating in Japan recruit recent graduates from Japanese universities (undergraduate programs, especially in the social sciences, and master’s programs, particularly in engineering) without expecting specific expert knowledge or skills from those hired. The graduates are hired for their broad education skills, to be retrained through in-house (mostly on-the-job) training systems, which are typically well developed in large corporations. Obedience to the corporate culture based on the homogeneous national cultural context is often stressed. Therefore, those who are educated outside the Japanese higher education system (or recruited outside Japan even if they are Japanese nationals) cannot easily follow the same recruitment and career

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paths geared toward graduates from Japanese universities (and, in particular, from prestigious Japanese universities). The mature structure of the domestic student market protected by the language barrier and high living standards discourage students and higher education institutions from exposing themselves to intense international competition. However, at the same time, avoiding the internationalization of Japanese higher education is almost impossible in light of the increasing global interaction at many social, cultural, and economic levels. First, demographic change—namely, the aging of the workforce and the decrease in the younger population—directly results in the contraction of the traditional student market and the long-term deterioration of national socioeconomic activity in Japan. In 2009, some 46.5% of private universities faced difficulties in attracting the number of students allowed by governmental regulation (Promotion and Mutual Aid Corporation for Private Schools of Japan [PMACPSJ], 2009). For less prestigious universities, access to the international student market is recognized as a possible option to soften the financial consequences of declining tuition income. Although most international students are from developing countries, universities can expect some (frequently bargained) tuition income as well as subsidies from other governments for promoting the internationalization of higher education in Japan. The importance of these international students can go beyond softening financial problems for private Japanese universities. In view of the demographic changes, a shrinking of the domestic working population is also predicted during the near and medium term, which raises a human resource challenge for Japanese corporations, and two possible main strategies for public policies: either (1) open up migration policies to facilitate foreign workers working in Japan (which, in greater numbers, may bring some social and cultural disruptions to Japanese firms owing to their long-standing tradition of relying overwhelmingly on Japanese workers alone and to a still rather homogenous Japanese society) or (2) attract an ever greater number of international students to Japanese universities, train them, and prepare them to cope with the working culture of Japanese corporations and the expectations of Japanese society (including mastering the Japanese language). Second, top-level research, especially in science and engineering fields, cannot be sustained without attracting young, high-caliber talent, regardless of national origin. In these fields, almost all research is published in English, and most of the leading Japanese research universities face difficulties in meeting the academic human resource needs from Japanese nationals alone. These are also the disciplinary areas in which the competition for the best international students is fiercest, as even the United States and major scientific and economic European countries (such as the United Kingdom) have difficulties in attracting and maintaining this kind of human resources.

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At the same time, countries known for providing international students to host countries are increasingly developing their higher education systems (e.g., China), and this development may constrict the future number of international students available to be attracted by countries with lesser international prestige in science or without many universities that are recognized as world-class. Third, domestic students are starting to demand from universities more opportunities for exposure to global academia and business. Nowadays, almost all industries are directly linked to the global economy, and there is little room in domestic markets for further expansion. Though very real, this change is difficult to perceive and is still not seriously recognized by most students and faculty alike. Admittedly, however, the rate and extent of this change are greater in neighboring countries and economies such as South Korea and Taiwan than in Japan (Yonezawa & Kim, 2008). Considering the three major actors of Clark’s (1983) famous model of academic triangles and its further examination in a global age (Marginson, 2011), there could be a gap in responsiveness to internationalization between the state and government, universities and academics, and students and market spheres (Yonezawa, 2009). Japan would be categorized as a country with two arenas of internationalization according to Teichler’s (1999) definition: a country that pursues the expansion of its inherited culture and language while at the same time fostering the transformation of its own culture and system into a global one. A detailed analysis of the response of those three main actors based on the combination of data from policy documents and surveys in the case of Japanese higher education is presented in the next section. We expect that this analysis will permit the development of a comprehensive mapping of the current characteristics of the international student market in Japan and East Asia.

Analysis State and Government Discussion of the internationalization of higher education in Japan over the last three decades has been closely linked to the threat to the country’s distinguished position in the surrounding region and to global policy trends in internationalization and the adaptation to globalization. In the beginning of the 1980s, Japanese society considered taking active steps toward the internationalization of higher education as an inevitable tool for further socioeconomic development. At that time, Japanese high- or mediumhigh technology manufacturing products such as automobiles and a wide range of electronic appliances were to become main exporting industries, transforming the Japanese economy into one of the strongest economies

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in the world. In this context, Japanese companies started to set up overseas manufacturing plants for two main reasons. First, Japanese enterprises needed to find less costly human resources outside Japan, as the salaries of the domestic labor force increased. Second, to avoid trade conflicts over exports to North America and Europe, Japanese companies started manufacturing on-site to provide job opportunities, fostering, at the same time, positive sentiment toward Japanese businesses and products. These circumstantial changes brought with them the need for Japanese managers and professionals to work more effectively in international contexts. In terms of quantity, however, for the Japanese companies it was strategically more important to train non-Japanese human resources to work under the Japanese corporate and working culture and, desirably, using the Japanese language. Based on such socioeconomic demands, a plan to invite 100,000 international students by the year 2000 was initiated in 1983 by the Japanese government (Horie, 2003; Umakoshi, 1996). The 100,000 target meant a tenfold increase in relation to the number of international students enrolled in the Japanese higher education system in 1983 and was achieved in 2003, slightly behind the original schedule. The achievement was realized mainly by absorbing the demands of self-supported students within Asia (Yonezawa, 2003). The background rationale for the radical increase in international student numbers was based on the notion that international student exchange would be beneficial in promoting mutual understanding with other countries, would improve the quality of education and research, and would further contribute to the development of human resources in Japan and other Asian countries. At least officially, there was no intention of transforming Japanese higher education into an export industry, although the number of students receiving public scholarships from the Japanese government continues to be rather low. However, the share of students supported by the Japanese government decreased only slightly, from 21.9% to 19.2%, between 1983 and 2008 (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology [MEXT], 2008), which is surprising considering the more than tenfold increase in the total number of international students. This clearly demonstrates that public support for the internationalization of the Japanese higher education system—perceived here by the number of scholarships for international students—has somehow kept almost the same pace as student internationalization, whereas the vast majority of international students have been basically self-financed and pay part or all of their tuition fees. After the turn of the century, policies for the internationalization of higher education became more directly linked with national strategies for socioeconomic development and diplomacy. The Koizumi cabinet (2001–2006) introduced the idea of fostering approximately 30 worldclass universities and subsidized top-level research units to improve

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the international competitiveness of research and the training of young researchers under a scheme called 21st Century Centers of Excellence (COE21) and, from 2006 onward, Global Centers of Excellence (Global COE). The Abe cabinet (2006–2007) aimed to maintain Japan’s leading position in Asia by opening up Japanese society. From this point of view, the internationalization of higher education and the acceptance and training of talented human resources from other Asian countries were placed high on the policy agenda. The Fukuda cabinet (2007–2008) used higher education policy as a diplomatic tool. His cabinet established a plan to invite 300,000 international students by 2020 and set the plan to select 30 key universities (Global 30) as focal points in promoting internationalization. Although the Japanese government and universities provide various facilities and services supporting the learning experience of international students (i.e., housing, opportunities for part-time work, Japanese language programs, job fairs), the provision of programs in the English language remains limited. Degree programs in English at the undergraduate level are provided at only 1 local public university and 4 private universities and, at the graduate level, at only 68 out of 584 universities (MEXT, 2008). In 2009, 13 (7 national public and 6 private) large comprehensive universities were selected as the first member institutions of the Global 30 program, with MEXT requiring that they engage in a drastic increase in English language degree programs at the undergraduate and graduate levels. In 2009, international students in Japan were primarily from Asia (92.3%), especially from mainland China (59.6%), South Korea (14.8%), and Taiwan (4.0%) (Japan Student Services Organization [JASSO], 2009). Linguistically, Koreans and Chinese have an advantage in learning the Japanese language, and most are able to study in Japanese or prefer Japanese to English as the language of instruction. The majority of international students are studying in the humanities (24.8%) and social sciences (38.1%), for which knowledge of Japanese tends to be a necessity. However, most policy debates at the governmental committee level tend to stress the need to provide programs in English, either to attract international graduate students or to foster undergraduate Japanese students’ learning in English. If the Japanese higher education system is to diversify the nationalities of incoming international students and start to attract international students from all over the world, then it is critical that Japanese higher education institutions provide programs in English. Considering the continuously strengthening English language domination in the increasingly globalized knowledge society, it is unrealistic to expect an increase in the international influence of the Japanese language. Especially in the natural sciences and in engineering, Japanese universities have a long tradition of enrolling students from Southeast Asia and from other developing and middle-income countries with the

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support of Japanese government scholarships and, to a lesser extent, with the support of scholarships provided by the sending countries (actually, in many cases, using a resource of the Official Development Aid loan scheme provided by the Japanese government). Students from Southeast Asia (e.g., Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam) prefer to study in English. The fact that Chinese, Japanese and, to some degree, Korean share the same written characters facilitates Chinese and Korean students’ learning in Japanese. In general, students outside the Korean or Chinese language groups tend to be government supported. The different language can explain this, but other explanations rest on the existence of strong competition for these students from English-speaking higher education systems based in North America, the United Kingdom, Australasia, Singapore, and Hong Kong. Therefore, the higher education market in Japan is actually dominated by Japanese students or foreign residents who do not mind studying or who wish to study in Japanese. In short, although terms such as global leadership and world-class appear frequently in Japanese policy documents and debates, actual policy implementation and funding to support international students tend to be rather regionally and linguistically bound. However, sending domestic students abroad also represents a significant challenge, because the availability of public student loans and research fellowships is highly limited and, at least historically, because Japanese companies tend to request cultural adaptation to the Japanese business world. The government basically realizes these constraints, stressing the importance of the internationalization of the Japanese higher education system. Universities and Academics The position of Japanese universities in global university rankings, such as the Academic Ranking of World Universities by Shanghai Jiao Tong University and the QS World University Rankings, has been surprisingly high considering their quite limited international student population profiles. The explanation for the positioning of these universities is perhaps found in a research-oriented tradition and accumulated resources derived from a high concentration of government investment in engineering and natural and medical sciences in a limited number of leading national public universities. The shared common characteristics among top Japanese national universities, such as high academic productivity and very small share of international faculty and students, imply that their research proficiency may derive from a skewed concentration of national-based resources and, perhaps, from other factors such as a long-standing reputation as compared with universities in other emerging economies in Asia and efficient team-oriented laboratory work based on the homogeneous culture.

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These profiles are well known among managers and leaders of Japanese universities, as found by Yonezawa, Akiba, and Hirouchi (2009) when they surveyed institutional leaders from all universities in Japan. The authors found that university leaders in Japan prefer the internationalization of Japanese universities to improve Japan’s economic and scientific competitiveness (76.5%) and cultural and societal influence (77.6%) rather than internationalization for harmonization and partnership with neighboring countries (43.2%). At the same time, Japanese university leaders lack confidence in the commercially based international competitiveness of their educational services. Around 80% of national and private universities expect neither financial nor nonmonetary benefits from internationalization. Instead, national public universities expect income from governmental funds for international cooperation and research (91.9%) and from foreign government and international organizations (50.0%). Private universities tend to expect most of this in the form of Japanese government subsidies for recruiting international students (51.1%) rather than as tuition from international students (31.6%). The universities were also less confident about the quality of their students. Only 55.9% of national universities and 13.8% of private universities aim to meet international standards in the quality and selectivity of the universities’ students, while 83.2% of national universities and 27.8% of private universities aim to achieve international quality and standards in research outcomes. Research with statistical evidence on the behaviors and attitudes toward internationalization in higher education among academics in Japan is very limited. Huang (2009) conducted a quantitative analysis on the international activities of Japanese academics based on a large-scale comparative survey in 2007 led by Cummings and Arimoto (Changing Academic Profession [CAP]). Comparing the CAP results with those of the 1992 survey by the Carnegie Foundation by Philip Altbach, Huang (2009) found some improvement in the internationalization of academic activities over the last 15 years in Japan. However, he stated that the progress had been made mainly by individual research activities in the national public sector and in specific fields, such as natural science and engineering, rather than at the systemic level (e.g., internationalization in curriculum design). Huang concluded that no fundamental change can be expected unless collective efforts among academics for international-oriented reform are realized. In 2010, the Times Higher Education published its new world university rankings in collaboration with Thomson Reuters. Under the new ranking methodology, which controls for size and fields of academic performance based on the science database heavily dominated by English-language publications, the top Japanese universities experienced a significant drop in their ranking positions, which the Times Higher Education explained by

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referring to the comments by Philip Altbach about the possible negative impact of the delay that Japanese higher education has been experiencing in becoming more internationalized. At the same time, the detailed analyses on academic performance by Leiden University and the Higher Education Evaluation and Accreditation Council of Taiwan (HEEACT) suggested that the high academic performance of top Japanese universities has relied mainly on the extraordinary large faculty size in the science, engineering, and medical fields rather than on the performance of individual researchers. This evidence clearly suggests that leaders and academics of Japanese universities do not recognize that their educational services are sufficiently competitive as international export markets, although the universities are actively challenging for developing international competitiveness. While the need to internationalize itself is widely accepted, Japanese universities still rely heavily on support from the Japanese government. Students and Market As to the international profile of university students in Japan, very few evidence-based studies exist. Still, there is some research on the behaviors and perspectives of international students in Japan, which usually take a qualitative approach with intensive field study. A recent study by LiuFarrer (2009) is a good example of such studies. Liu-Farrer was successful at identifying the attitudes of Chinese students while adapting to Japanese society as an important social component. The University of Tokyo implemented a comprehensive survey of its international students and faculty (Funamori, 2009). Funamori’s research revealed a high demand for instruction in English and a more active institutional approach to integrate non-Japanese students into the university community. As to the international perspectives of Japanese students, Yonezawa (2010) analyzed the data of a national-level survey that was part of an international project that surveyed graduates of Japanese and European universities 5 years after they graduated in 2000 (Yoshimoto, 2010). The analysis, focusing on the international experience of students at Japanese universities and its impact in comparison with those in European universities, yielded the following results. First, as shown in Table 5.1, there is a large gap between male and female graduates regarding study and work experiences abroad before and after graduation in Japan. The male respondents could be interpreted as representing the traditional job career pattern relying on internal labor markets dominated by large firms, whereas the female respondents represent new, more globalized career patterns through self-investment in education and training. The study-abroad experience of men during their university years is extremely low, even as compared with women. After graduation, the total experience abroad is almost the same between men and women,

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but women are more likely to have study experiences abroad and men more likely to have work experiences abroad. The comparison of these results with those for European graduates is interesting. Particularly, there is no significant gap in terms of experience abroad between men and women in most European countries. Still men tend to have more work experience abroad than do women after graduation. However, the meaning of working abroad among Japanese and European graduates is completely different. In Europe, a person generally applies for a specific job vacancy to work abroad. In the case of Japan, the great majority of the university graduates in the humanities, social sciences, and even in the natural sciences and engineering are recruited by companies without clarification of specific jobs. Within a highly developed internal labor market, employees are located and promoted under the control of the human resources department. This implies that Japanese companies tend to offer more jobs abroad to male workers, although female workers are more likely to have experiences of studying abroad. This may strengthen the already widely held perception that female workers in Japanese companies in general are still disadvantaged in career development. Second, the study-abroad experiences of Japanese university students are, in most cases, very short as compared with European students. In Europe, because of the ERASMUS program, the typical study-abroad period during one’s university years is approximately 6 months–1 year. In contrast, 71.4% of the experiences of studying abroad among Japanese students are shorter than 3 months. In Japan, students are reluctant to take a long leave from Japan, because they have to start a job search typically more than 1 year before graduation. This explains why most of the socalled study-abroad programs for Japanese students consist of studying at language schools or in short-term summer programs or the like. As for competency levels, there is not a very significant gap between those with experiences in studying abroad and those without, except for foreign language proficiency. Last, studying abroad, especially for more than 2 months and for male graduates, results in some advantages in career development such as job security, career perspectives, and salary. It appears that there is a mindset, especially among male students, that the study-abroad experience is useless or, at least, that men tend to believe work experience abroad will be offered if one first excels in a Japanese company. The findings detailed in Table 5.1 suggest that there are few and weak incentives for students in Japan to be more internationalized. It is unlikely that the students and market work as a driving force for the internationalization of Japanese universities.

Reconsidering the Realities of the International Student Market  •  77 Table 5.1  Study and work experience abroad during and after five years of study among university graduates During study Japan Austria Belgium Czech Republic Estonia Finland France Germany Italy Netherlands Norway Portugal Spain Switzerland United Kingdom

After graduation (5 years) Study

Work

Total

(%)

(%)

(%)

(%)

5.0

2.0

4.1

5.9

Female

15.2

4.6

2.0

5.9

Male

36.8

9.0

30.4

34.9

Female

38.6

7.1

20.1

24.7

Male

26.1

9.4

36.0

39.9

Female

28.9

8.9

22.7

27.9

Male

26.4

7.4

20.9

26.4

Female

26.6

7.4

15.4

21.2

Male

20.7

16.2

15.5

28.9

Female

17.9

12.6

14.5

23.1

Male

25.9

3.4

18.3

20.8

Female

35.9

3.9

13.1

15.7

Male

37.1

8.1

24.9

30.5

Female

30.6

6.6

11.6

16.4

Male

30.7

5.7

13.9

17.6

Female

30.0

4.6

10.9

14.1

Male

16.7

11.8

14.5

23.3

Female

18.6

8.5

8.8

15.1

Male

30.1

5.0

21.7

24.2

Female

30.8

4.4

12.5

15.3

Male

19.3

5.9

8.9

12.9

Female

20.5

4.9

6.0

9.6

Male

16.6

4.8

16.2

19.2

Female

11.4

5.1

9.2

13.2

Male

16.3

8.0

13.3

20.7

Female

16.2

7.8

10.8

18.5

Male

27.4

10.9

21.7

30.4

Female

31.6

11.2

13.7

22.3

Male

17.9

6.5

22.0

26.2

Female

19.8

5.3

15.9

19.4

Male

78  •  Akiyoshi Yonezawa and Hugo Horta

Conclusion Experiences over the last two decades within the Asia-Pacific region have revealed a gap between the idea of higher education as a promising industry and the reality that only a limited part of higher education provision—such as English-based undergraduate and master of business administration programs—can be operated on a commercial basis. The case of Japan, although extreme even among Asian countries, indicates that market-oriented internationalization does not always lead to the development of a cosmopolitan, English-based international student market. Other countries such as South Korea, China, Taiwan, and some large-scale Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries such as Thailand may share a similar challenge, at least to some degree. For example, the majority of international students in South Korea are from China and Japan, and the majority of international students in China are from Korea and Japan. Major countries with large populations and economic strengths may develop a large-scale higher education system and student markets based on respective languages. However, even in extreme cases such as Japan, the survey results suggest that there are advantages for those who have English proficiency in the labor market. Prospective countries in the Asia-Pacific region have to take significant steps to internationalize their higher education systems, through developing regional, common frameworks as seen in Europe, more than by relying on independent national initiatives (to some degree with the exception of ASEAN member states). The Japanese government has taken a minor and passive role in expanding the Japanese higher education system, but strong support from the government is essential for improving the international competitiveness of Japanese universities in the current context. Combining observations based on policy document analyses and the surveys previously discussed clearly indicates the need for further public commitment to higher education in a global society.

References Clark, B. R. (1983). The higher education system: Academic organization in crossnational perspective. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Funamori, M. (2009). Kyoiku no Kokusai ka wo Kanga Eru [On internationalization of university education]. IDE Gendai no Koto Kyoiku, 511, 72–77. Goodman, R. (1990). Japan’s “international youth”: The emergence of a new class of schoolchildren. Oxford, England: Clarendon. Horie, M. (2002). The internationalization of higher education in Japan in the 1990s: A reconsideration. Higher Education, 43, 65–84. Horta, H. (2009). Global and national prominent universities: Internationalization, competitiveness and the role of the state. Higher Education, 58, 387–405.

Reconsidering the Realities of the International Student Market  •  79 Horta, H. (2010). The role of the state in the internationalization of universities in catching-up countries: An analysis of the Portuguese higher education system. Higher Education Policy, 23, 63–81. Huang, F. (2009). Internationalization of academic profession in Japan: A quantitative perspective. Journal of Studies in International Education, 13 (2), 421–432. Iiyoshi, H. (2008). Sengo Nihon Sangyo Kai no Daigaku Kyoiku Yokyu [Requests for university education by Japanese industry after World War II]. Tokyo: Toshindo Press. Japan Student Services Organization. (2009). Gaikokujin Ryugakusei Zaiseki Jokyo Chosa Kekka [The report on the survey on foreign students’ registration]. Tokyo: Author. Kaneko, M. (2004). Japanese higher education reform: Contemporary reform and the influence of tradition. In P. G. Altbach & T. Umakoshi (Eds.), Asian universities, historical perspectives, and contemporary challenges (pp. 115–143). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Liu-Farrer, G. (2009). Educationally channeled international labor mobility: Contemporary student migration from China to Japan. International Migration Review, 43 (1), 178–204. Marginson, S. (2011). Imaging the global. In R. King, S. Marginson, & R. Naidoo (Eds.), Handbook on globalization and higher education. Cheltenham, England: Edward Elgar. Marginson, S., & van der Wende, M. (2007). Globalisation and higher education. Working Paper Number 8 (6 July). Paris, France: Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. (2008). Waga Kuni no Bunkyo Seisaku [Education policies of Japan: White paper] 2008. Tokyo: Author. Mok, K. (2007). Globalisation, new education governance and state capacity in East Asia. Globalisation, Societies and Education, 5 (1), 1–21. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. (2010). Education at a glance 2010. Paris: Author. Promotion and Mutual Aid Corporation for Private Schools of Japan. (2009). Shiritsu Daigaku Tanki Daigaku Tou Nyuugaku Shigan Doko 2009 [Trends of application to private universities and colleges 2009]. Tokyo: Author. Teichler, U. (1999). Internationalisation as a challenge for higher education in Europe. Tertiary Education and Management, 5, 5–23. Umakoshi, T. (1996). Internationalization of Japanese higher education in the 1980’s and early 1990’s. Higher Education, 34, 259–273. Yonezawa, A. (2003). The impact of globalisation on higher education governance in Japan. Higher Education Research and Development, 22 (2), 145–154. Yonezawa, A. (2009). The internationalization of Japanese higher education: Policy debates and realities. Nagoya Journal of Higher Education, 9, 199–219. Yonezawa, A. (2010). International experience among university graduates and its gender gap: Examination of Japan’s case in comparison with Europe. Research in Higher Education, 41, 343–360. Yonezawa, A., Akiba, H., & Hirouchi, D. (2009). Japanese university leaders’ perceptions of internationalization: The role of government in review and support. Journal of Studies in International Education, 13, 125–142.

80  •  Akiyoshi Yonezawa and Hugo Horta Yonezawa, A., & Kim, T. (2008). The future of higher education in the context of a shrinking student population: Policy challenges for Japan and Korea. In OECD, Higher Education to 2030: Vol. 1. Demography (pp. 199–220). Paris: Author. Yoshimoto, K. (Ed.). (2010). Junansei to Senmonsei: Daigaku no Jinzai Yosei no Nichio Hikaku [Comparative studies on human resource development in higher education of Europe and Japan]. Higashi-Hiroshima, Japan: RIHE, Hiroshima University.

6

University Rankings, Global Models, and Emerging Hegemony Critical Analysis from Japan

Mayumi Ishikawa

Introduction The increasingly transnational character of higher education has brought tremendous dynamism for the advancement of science and technology. The trend also provides opportunities for the improvement of higher education through collaboration, competition, exchange of ideas, and increased exposure. Without trivializing these benefits, this study is concerned with another dimension of the globalization of higher education: the emergence of dominant models that embody a particular type of power that transforms identities and affects internal hierarchies both within individual institutions and across national systems of higher education. Japanese universities are considered a strategic locale in which to critically observe the emergence of such models and the configurations of power that create and maintain the dominance. The analysis illustrates the challenges and dilemmas as experienced by a non-Western university at which English is not the dominant language of instruction. Such an institution’s quest to stay competitive and relevant through proactive “internationalization” can best be understood in the context of an emerging hegemony in the globalization process of higher education. Throughout most of its modern history, Japan has maintained a rather self-sustained, national language–based higher education model with a stratification mechanism to select and produce future leaders and professionals. Except for periods immediately following the Meiji Restoration (1868) and the establishment of the modern university system in the late 81

82  •  Mayumi Ishikawa

nineteenth century, Japan has never relied on foreign languages or scholars to operate the nation’s higher education institutions (Amano, 2009). Japan has existed outside the realm of Western higher education power domains, and Western university degrees have held little relevance for upward mobility on an existing national social ladder. Yet, over the past decade, such independence has slowly been altered because of a number of sociopolitical, demographic, and economic factors, both domestic and global. The current study focuses on the crucial dimensions of prestige and status-seeking in the global arena by outlining struggles and the search for identity among Japan’s leading higher education institutions. The findings herein are based on extended microlevel participant observation at a national university aspiring to be a “world-class” institution. This study first presents a case study of a university being ranked. It is a story of contact with a ranking institution, one of the producers of the world university rankings and league tables. Unlike several recent studies that review the general trends and characteristics of the ranking exercises or critically analyze criteria and methodologies used (see, for example, Marginson, 2006; Marginson & van der Wende, 2007; Sadlak & Liu, 2007), this ethnography plainly depicts what actors do and how they do it; how a non-English and non-Western university was approached by a ranking organization, what sorts of requests were made and how, what communications followed, and how a university and its people responded. By beginning with dynamics at the microlevel, the nature of this particular ranking exercise becomes more apparent. Consequently, the study analyzes the creation of dominant world-class university models and their impact on higher education in Japan. The results suggest that powerful global models appear to help cultivate a new quest for elite education overseas; create a new, internationalized national hierarchy; affect the balance of power between natural sciences and engineering faculties on the one hand and humanities and social sciences faculties on the other within institutions; and even devalue research in the national language. Such challenges thus necessitate fundamental changes on the part of Japanese research universities. In the end, the findings address the issue of emerging hegemony in the world’s higher education and deliberate on dimensions of knowledge construction as process and history in the context of globalization.

Case Study of a University Being Ranked First Contact In June 2006, Osaka University first received, in its inbox for general inquiries posted on the main university website, an email message requesting data

University Rankings, Global Models, and Emerging Hegemony  •  83

for the Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) University Rankings. The message came from a researcher employed by a private company with a list of 13 questions, including such inquiries as the numbers of faculty and international faculty, numbers of undergraduate and international undergraduate students, average course fees per year, and percentage of graduates employed 6 months after graduation. There was no letter of endorsement from the THES editor. What made the message more dubious was the way the questions were posed: no definitions were given for any of the listed questions. In addition, there was no guarantee on the appropriate and limited use of the requested data. In short, the survey did not seem to respect basic research protocol and, to the administrative staff that first fielded the email, the message appeared to be “spam.” THES and QS Quacquarelli Symonds Limited (QS) started the world university rankings exercise in 2004. Until that year, however, there had been no record of contact between Japanese universities and the research company, QS, that was contracted by THES to undertake data collection. For this reason, the decision was made to verify the authenticity of the survey. Osaka University staff sent inquiries to other Japanese universities only to find that they were grateful to be notified of such a survey that failed to make it through their spam filter. Concerned, the international office of Osaka University finally forwarded the message to the THES editor to check its authenticity. In his reply, the editor stated that “the rankings are emphatically a joint venture” between the THES and QS and confirmed the role of QS in gathering data. It was then that the offices and staff concerned first became aware of a gap between the celebrated image of the “world’s best universities” and the cursory process of creating it. The results of the first two THES-QS rankings were noted with various degrees of pleasure and displeasure but not taken seriously among faculty and staff at the university. In the second year of their ranking exercise, released in the fall 2005, Osaka University slipped from the global top 100. Most insiders greeted the result with a shrug, noting that the ranking of almost all Japanese universities fell. The relative positioning among domestic universities was the primary concern at that time. However, after receiving the first survey in 2006, we at the university started paying more attention to the dynamics and details of how the entire ranking exercise was constructed. Behind the Scenes of Data Collection Subsequent episodes showcase how this ranking exercise presents itself to the people in a particular university. By providing the requested data, our university became an active participant in the exercise. At the same time, we discovered irregularities and problems through communications with the company and by cross-examination of the data.

84  •  Mayumi Ishikawa

First came the questions surrounding definitions. A good example is the issue of the number of international students. In Japan, “international students” are defined by visa status in contrast to other countries that apply various other signifiers. Our university was instructed via email from a QS researcher in charge to “define all non-Japanese nationals as international students,” thereby necessitating the inclusion of resident Korean and Chinese students. Yet the university did not have such statistics. The second relates to the selection process of reviewers and the third to the related issue of “peer review” representation, especially concerning the national background of the reviewers. It is well known that THES university rankings rely heavily on reputation factors; 40% of the overall score is based on peer review, and 10% on recruiters review. Such weight attached to peer ratings has often been the subject of criticism as they favor well-known universities by the fact that “reputational rankings recycle reputation” (Marginson, 2006, p. 9). In spring 2007, our university was contacted for the second round of the survey exercise. There were some improvements on the overall methodology, including the clarification of several definitions. The ranking organization disclosed more information on how they collect and process the data gathered from universities and faculties. Despite this welcome move, the research company also introduced a new, problematic initiative. It “invite[d] universities themselves to supplement [their] databases” by supplying them with “lists of relevant employer contacts (company, individual contact name and position, email, telephone number) to whom [they] can send the survey.” The university could not accommodate this request on two accounts. First, doing so would be in violation of confidentiality laws of Japan. Second, it would amount to reviewees nominating reviewers. Our university protested in a letter attached to the survey response, which has not resulted in any substantive changes. During this process, we also reviewed the website and checked the information disclosed on the composition of peer reviewers for the 2006 survey. The result was far from encouraging. The number of Japanese universities or academics involved in the exercise was fairly small in comparison with those of other countries, most notably English-language countries. The Asia-Pacific peer review votes, by the location of reviewers’ affiliated institutions, were constituted as follows (Sowter, n.d.a): • • • • • • •

India Australia Malaysia Indonesia Singapore China Japan

256 191 112 93 92 76 53

University Rankings, Global Models, and Emerging Hegemony  •  85

THES-QS claimed to have maintained a regional balance among the Americas, Europe and the Middle East, and the Asia-Pacific region. However, the data looked far from “geographically even in its breakdown”1 and up to 2006 allowed peer reviewers to nominate their own institutions (Sowter, n.d.b). Japanese higher education hosted approximately 5% of the world’s tertiary-level foreign students in 2005, ranking only after the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Australia among all Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries (OECD, 2007, p. 304). In terms of the volume of scientific papers listed in the Thomson Scientific database, Japan occupies the second highest position only after the United States (King, 2007). From its contribution to global higher education and research, one does not have to be a Japanese academic to find strong evidence that the country deserves better representation.2 The preceding insights give a glimpse of what is occurring behind the scenes of the production of the world’s “top universities” by established Western journalism. The problems associated with the rankings are not only with the criteria and methodologies used but also with the lack of mechanisms to ensure that surveys are carried out in a sound, scientific manner to minimize chances of manipulation. Yet the university rankings thrive. Numerous international conferences and symposia on well-known university rankings such as those by THES and Shanghai Jiao Tong University are organized throughout the world, with some producing suggested guidelines for proper rankings (e.g., Institute for Higher Education Policy, 2006). Such commendable efforts have led to adjustments and improvements to the existing ranking systems. Facing the rampant university rankings of all sorts, however, one must acknowledge the reality that “there have been few concerted efforts to discredit the rankings process, which appears to have secured public credibility” (Marginson & van der Wende, 2007, p. 309). The ethnography of contact with a ranking agency also showcases how the creation of prestigious models manifests itself in the eyes of those at nonWestern, non-English-language universities. In the following section, we briefly examine the emergence of such models in the global context, before moving on to a detailed study of their impact in a particular national context.

The Emergence of World-Class University Models Some argue that the emergence of world university rankings in recent years is yet another dimension of the globalization of higher education, associated with the increased mobility of students across national boundaries and the growing demand from prospective students for a quick tool for comparison among institutions on a global scale. For others, the rankings represent increased commercial interest in higher education, which necessitates a university’s marketing strategies not only in recruiting international students

86  •  Mayumi Ishikawa

but in promoting and creating a “brand” image overseas (e.g., Sidhu, 2006). Many universities around the world therefore embrace the rankings and use them for publicity and marketing purposes. They are often referenced, used for evaluation, and widely accepted as an authoritative vision of a successful “global model.” They are also becoming an increasingly useful tool for universities in cultivating diplomatic relations (i.e., in identifying prospective overseas partners, welcoming visitors, and creating new strategic and/or academic alliances). Philip Altbach (2007, p. 7) grudgingly made reference to a “mania” to identify world-class universities, universities at the top of a prestige and quality hierarchy. Such identification, Altbach argued, was closely related to the prevalence of university rankings. Most notable among the many are two new international rankings, one by THES (renamed Times Higher Education or THE in 2009) and the other by Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s Institute of Higher Education that started its league table in 2003. Both were introduced when increased student mobility, primarily triggered by the massive outward educational migration of Chinese students after 2000 (see Wang, 2007; Xiang, 2003, p. 28) altered the mindset of university management. Indeed, the high mobility and transnational character of higher education has reached a new level since the beginning of this century. Earlier rankings such as Asiaweek’s that started in the late 1990s failed to survive, partly because many universities then had chosen to boycott the rankings. Shanghai Jiao Tong’s rankings juxtapose “comparable” indicators on academic and research performances of universities rather than universities’ overall performances. Such differences aside, the rankings have created an image of the world’s best and strongest universities. The top-tiered universities on such lists are predominantly well-known names, comprehensive, research oriented, and English-language medium. Of the top 30 universities on the 2007 lists, the combined number of American and British universities amount to 22 and 26, for the THES and Jiao Tong rankings, respectively. Universities that usually occupy the top 10 positions in the rankings easily fit the world-class category (see Altbach & Balán, 2007; Huisman, 2008), which includes the so-called “Big Three (Harvard, Yale, and Princeton)” and “prestige” or “elite” colleges in the United States (Karabel, 2005; Soares, 2007) as well as Oxbridge in the United Kingdom. They present a powerful image of being on the top of the world and thus function as global models to emulate. They excel in most of the de facto standards and categories used by ranking institutions, such as citations and awards and medals received by either faculty or graduates. Most attract talent from overseas, and considerable proportions of students and scholars at these institutions are foreign-born. Many on the lists are the world’s most generously financed universities and are proactive in their efforts in ensuring fiscal soundness. Furthermore, many have shown a commitment to be successful not only nationally but also internationally, by

University Rankings, Global Models, and Emerging Hegemony  •  87

making deliberate efforts to “go global” (see, for example, Karabel, 2005, pp. 518 and 521, on Yale’s “world university” initiative). Alliance with such top-tiered universities is actively sought after by nonAmerican, non-European universities aspiring to cultivate an image of being among this global elite. These top universities often are enticed with financial incentives to create transnational academic alliances and joint or double degree programs or to start offshore operations. Examples abound: the MIT– National University of Singapore alliance (Sidhu, 2007) and a 2009 highprofile deal between Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley, with King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia (Schevitz, 2008) are just a few of the recent partnership agreements that have made headlines. The brand image of the top of the league universities traverses national boundaries and often affects the existing regional or national academic hierarchy either directly or indirectly. Emerging local universities seek to form a new regional educational core by attracting home students and, increasingly, students from within the region. Curriculum development is based on the model of top universities, with English being the language of instruction as a matter of course. The university rankings helped to create an image of global elite universities, but the manufacturing of prestige is, in fact, nothing new for higher education institutions. Take the example of the United States, where detailed studies by Karabel (2005) and Soares (2007) showed the construction of prestige was never simply the assurance of academic merit. The creation of elite institutions and the maintenance of their image are the result of carefully orchestrated efforts that reflect each institution’s history and political priorities as well as competition and rivalry, which cannot be summarized in simple charts and numbers. Similarly, universities in the world will not be affected the same way by the diffusion of uniform worldclass university models. They, too, operate in various sociocultural settings and widely differ in size and orientations. The following section will take the case of Japanese research universities and analyze the impact of the new global models on Japan’s higher education.

Impact on National Higher Education: The Case of Japan Today, Japanese universities painfully face the reality of global higher education. Long-cherished academic traditions that enabled national independence and self-sustenance are no longer valued in the way they once were under the emergence of dominant global models. Since the late nineteenth century, Japan has imported Western knowledge, translated it into the Japanese language, and thus never relied on a foreign language as a medium of instruction from primary to tertiary levels of education. Rather than being celebrated as proof of its independence and success in developing

88  •  Mayumi Ishikawa

domestic human resources, the practice of not hunting for foreign experts to fill available faculty positions is now interpreted as an inability to attract international talent, thus negatively evaluated by ranking exercises. The predominance of Japanese as the language of instruction, a symbol of cultural and linguistic autonomy, proves unpopular among prospective students, especially in natural science and engineering, who increasingly demand English-language courses and degree programs. The outcome of the recently launched “one-to-one” scholarship program by the Chinese government has in many ways substantiated worries among Japan’s higher education administrators, the business community, and national political leaders that the country is not the priority destination for Asia’s best students. Each year, the Chinese program sponsors 5,000 students at or approaching doctoral level from the country’s top-ranked universities to study at first-class institutions overseas. Although there were more Chinese students studying in Japan than elsewhere in the world,3 half of the approximately 4,000 applicants from China’s leading universities in the first year chose to go to the United States, followed by other Englishlanguage universities in Britain and Canada. According to information from the China Scholarship Council,4 only 181 students have chosen to study in Japan, far fewer than the initial projection of 10% by officials concerned. If the trend continues in the coming years, it would make current national discussions over “Japan passing” an immediate reality.5 The impact of the prevalence of university rankings and the diffusion of the global models on Japanese higher education will be explored by analyzing three salient issues. Rather than referring to the short-term responses by the academic community, this exploration focuses on areas where long-term implications are most likely: (1) a new quest for global elite education among Japanese prospective students, with particular attention to the country’s history and class awareness; (2) the impact of global models on the existing national hierarchy; and (3) the shifting balance of power between the natural science and humanities faculties as a consequence of the wide usage of citation indices. From Egalitarianism to Global Elitism The global rankings demonstrate the existing reality of a global hierarchy in higher education in a plain, explicit, and blatant manner. They portray the powerful image of the world’s top-class universities in a way that overshadows the most competitive domestic counterparts. What the top-ofthe-world image conveys is the future success in the global arena by superior academic training and cultivation of personal connections. Such notions may be especially appealing to prospective students who can qualify and afford the expensive “overseas” options that are not available at the home society

University Rankings, Global Models, and Emerging Hegemony  •  89

devoid of elite higher education. More students who previously would have chosen the leading universities at home appear now to be going overseas. This phenomenon needs to be understood both socially and historically. The notion of elite education is something that the Japanese education system cast off in the nation’s post-World War II transition to democratic society. The older, stratified higher education system was abolished when former elite institutions such as imperial universities and the older higher schools were grouped together with “lesser” institutions such as professional schools and teachers colleges and then reestablished as universities under the new system (Kariya, 2001, p. 128). By the late 1960s, an increase in university enrollment rates, a rise in the percentage of white-collar salaried workers in the overall workforce, and high rates of urbanization, among other factors, had led to the demise of the traditional Japanese academic elite and their predominantly class-based, high culture (Takeuchi, 1999, pp. 310– 317). Since about that same time, university degrees have gradually ceased to ensure managerial jobs and high income. Those without quality university diplomas may be disadvantaged in the future, but a university diploma alone no longer assures future career success (Kariya, 2001, p. 132; Takeuchi, 1999). Yet, the hierarchy among higher education institutions remained and competition for top universities was fierce. Education in postwar Japan evolved along the lines of a rigid principle of egalitarianism. Although the postwar educational reform contributed to making higher education universal and accessible, it also led to the general acceptance of uniformity as a signifier of equity (Kariya, 2001, chapters 3 & 4). Ability-based competitions and merit-based differentiation were minimized as they were considered “acknowledgement of differences” and therefore avoided as “discrimination” (Kariya, 2001, pp. 128–130). The demise of academic elitism went hand in hand with the tolerance for mediocrity as recorded in Donald Roden’s detailed historical studies of old higher schools (Roden, 1980). Although Roden (1980, p. 25) pointed out that the prewar higher education system had shortfalls and was destined to be abolished, he deplored the fading of the old standards for cultural excellence, writing that back in the 1930s “when the intellectual curiosity of American university students rarely exceeded the Saturday Evening Post,” a group of 18- and 19-year-old Japanese higher school students were given a list of 185 titles such as Ethische Grundfragen (p. 237). The lost academic elitism consequently witnessed an emerging “‘repressive tolerance’ for mediocrity and the neutralization of class consciousness in an industrial democracy” to the point that “mass higher education may have permanently consigned Japanese students to an undifferentiated culture of comic books, faded jeans, romance hotels, and Kentucky Fried Chicken” (Roden, 1980, p. 253). The resulting vacuum of elite education, wariness over egalitarianism that tolerates mediocrity, and an unfulfilled sense of entitlement among winners

90  •  Mayumi Ishikawa

(and prospective winners) of competitive university entrance exams, all constitute the background for the increasing popularity of the worldclass institutions abroad by the next generation of Japanese. Unabashedly straightforward world university rankings are indeed timely. On one hand, globalization and increased transnational mobility of students facilitate access to overseas higher education. More important, there is a gradual acquiescence to neoliberal discourse that encourages competitions and selfhelp, so that what happened in the United States is now happening in Japan. “As the gap between winners and losers in America grows ever wider—as it has since the early 1970s—the desire to gain every possible edge has only grown stronger” (Karabel, 2005, p. 3), and the acquisition of education credentials is increasingly recognized as a major vehicle for the transmission of privilege from parents to child. Recent opening of new cram schools and preparatory schools in Japan for those who aspire to enter major American universities is therefore not coincidental. Some are operated by private businesses, whereas others are linked to foreign institutions such as the University of California at Los Angeles and Temple University, Japan (Yomiuri online, 2008a). They offer preparatory English-language courses; some also instruct students on how to prepare application forms and how to perform well in essay writing and interviews. One such institution opened in May 2008 by a major education corporation is called “Route H,” meaning the route to Harvard. The company was established in response to the increasing number of inquiries on the application process of overseas universities from “competitive” high schools all over Japan. Representatives of the company say nearly 6% of the first-year and 4% of the second-year high school students who sit for their national trial exams now cite the name of a leading overseas university as their first choice (Yomiuri online, 2008b). The figures are not insignificant for a country with strong domestically based higher education.6 More important, the general trend is that students from the nation’s top high schools increasingly choose to study at American universities (Yomiuri online, 2008a). Internationalization of Domestic Hierarchies The world university rankings confirm, fortify, and sometimes distort the existing national hierarchy. They may also give rise to a new national hierarchy. Although domestic hierarchies have always existed among universities in Japan, hitherto it has been rather nuanced and discipline specific. The level of each department or faculty of a university is measured predominantly by the standards set for its entrance examinations. Admission procedures are generally supervised by an individual school or faculty rather than the university as a whole. This is particularly the case among conservative national universities. Reputations are built over time by a number of factors,

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such as the performance of graduates and their success in and contribution to the private sector and/or the society at large. In Japan, the academic hierarchy is crowned by the University of Tokyo, the most prestigious institution in the country, which receives the biggest share of state research funds and whose graduates predominate in the influential central government posts. Other universities are grouped together in progressive tiers of competitiveness. Under these conditions, higher institutions with different orientations—more locally based, more focused on education and training in specific areas, for instance—have played no small role in making Japan’s higher education more accessible, affordable, and universal. There is no denying that a degree of hierarchy has existed, and Japan’s higher education has a stratified system. In practice, however, explicit university-to-university comparison or overall institutional rankings hardly existed. Media reports and magazine articles that publish rankings usually do so in multitudes of categories such as fiscal soundness, employability, faculty pay scale, and gender balance.7 The world rankings have changed Japan’s domestic picture of higher education. They can reinforce the old hierarchy while possibly creating new ones. The nation’s leading universities—the seven former Imperial Universities (Universities of Hokkaido, Tohoku, Tokyo, Nagoya, Kyoto, Osaka, and Kyushu)—and the handful of top private universities (e.g. Waseda and Keio Universities) are potential global players that would most likely rank in the top 100 or 200 universities depending on which standards a particular league table adopts. They are keenly aware of their relative positioning vis-à-vis their national competitors in the world rankings and of potential damages their poor performances may cause. There is growing fear that the failure to do well on global rankings may negatively affect their future in the face of growing competition among universities while the nation’s population rapidly ages and college-age population continues to decline (Ishikawa, 2007). As part of the internationalization drive, now highly prioritized on the nation’s political agenda, many universities compete to recruit more international students and increase the number of international faculty. If successful, the increased presence of international students and faculty would make the universities look more international (and may improve their rankings). In January 2008, the national goal of hosting 300,000 international students was announced by then-Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda. The government subsequently selected 13 core universities in 2009 that were committed to drastically increasing the intake of international students to help achieve the national goal by launching the “Global 30” project with large-scale, preferential funding (Ishikawa, 2011). It has become common in recent years for high-profile, government research grants and projects that involve substantial sums of research funds to require that

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a high percentage of foreign researchers be included on the project team as an indicator of internationalization in evaluations. These projects are to affect the overall internationalization of universities. The top-tier schools are likely to be given a substantial share of the new research and education grants as the government hopes to make them competitive on the world stage. International denominators thus will become more closely linked to national hierarchy. Dominance of Natural Sciences and Engineering There is a more subtle yet profound impact of the global rankings. Japanese universities that do make the top 100 on the international league tables are all comprehensive research universities with strong natural science and engineering faculties. Universities specializing in social sciences and humanities do not usually fare as well. The citation index is the most frequently used denominator of a university’s research performance. It is based predominantly on publications in English-language journals and rarely acknowledges vernacular language research results, especially for papers in the social sciences and humanities. Although education and research in cultural and social studies remain solidly and decidedly in the Japanese language, scholars in science and engineering fields have converted to the English language with relative ease,8 even if their medium of instruction remains mostly Japanese. The global university rankings that heavily rely on citation indices generally acknowledge natural science performances by Japanese scholars but not those by their colleagues in the arts, humanities, and social sciences. As a result, the science and engineering faculty of a university may start considering their bunkei (nonnatural science disciplines such as humanities) colleagues as liabilities, weighing down their international reputation. This situation is perhaps better understood in the context of a single university. Take Osaka University as an example. Its overall score in the THES rankings in 2007 is 46. The so-called faculty level positions are 68 in engineering and IT, 39 in life sciences and biomedicine, 57 in natural sciences, 180 in arts and humanities, and 206 in social sciences. Osaka is a comprehensive national research university with more than 24,000 students and 2,800 faculty, 11 undergraduate and 15 graduate schools in multiple disciplines, and approximately 30 specialized research institutes and centers. It is fairly representative of Japan’s former imperial universities that have served as the backbone for the nation’s postwar economic success. Such imbalance in simple ranking quantifications indicates an inherent problem with an across-the-board comparison of universities worldwide that operate in different sociocultural and linguistic settings. Yet, instead of seeing the problem with the rankings themselves, the average observer is more likely

University Rankings, Global Models, and Emerging Hegemony  •  93

to look at these figures and conclude that the university is characterized by internationally competitive natural sciences and parochial social sciences. This combined disparity in both ranking and perspective can distort the existing order and recognition of individual departments. It is not difficult to imagine how this is potentially disruptive to the internal dynamics of a university when prestige begins to flow toward those areas that will produce the greatest gains in international reputation. Citation indices may be useful but should be handled with care, as the number of publications and citations differ markedly among disciplines. For example, consider the academic papers output in the United States and their breakdown by research areas studied by the National Science Foundation. Of the total number of academic papers in science and engineering published between 1988 and 2001 from the “top 200 U.S. universities,” more than 50% were in biological and medical sciences (Hill, Rapoport, Lehming, & Bell, 2007, in appendix table 18). Similarly, biological and medical sciences dominate the total paper outputs of the United Kingdom (53.7%), Canada (51.8%), Germany (45.8%), and France (42.8%).9 Life sciences are a dynamic and emerging scientific field that has seen the fastest pace of advancement of late. Life sciences papers are likely to be published in journals such as Nature and Science, two forums that are most commonly used for citation and evaluation. In the global university rankings and league tables that weigh citation indices, universities with strong medical and bioscience faculties are thus likely to occupy the top positions. With due respect to institutions’ productivity and fierce global competitions to excel, we should still be cautious about making critical judgments on institutional quality by quantifiable, comparative methods to avoid “a misguided sense of the fairness of decisions reached by algorithm” (Lehmann, Jackson, & Lautrup, 2006, p. 1004). Asian social science scholars are motivated to publish in the English language, to communicate with a wider audience and to build strong publication records for internal evaluation or to improve university standings in the rankings (Kratoska, 2007). Nevertheless, “even a greatly expanded program of English-language publication would only capture a small proportion of the academic research done in Asian languages” (Kratoska, 2007, p. 6), as the rapid increase in the volume of social science research in Asia between 1950 and 2000 was achieved by the rise of research in national languages by Asian scholars. During the same period, social science research on Asia “shifted from the activities of the West in Asia to the activities of the people of Asia” (Kratoska, 2007, p. 6). The situation will be affected by the move of some universities providing incentives to their faculty to publish more in English. The increased importance of Englishlanguage publication, however, will likely smother the nascent scholarship at local, regional, and national levels. It is surely not a matter of language alone but of representation and identity.

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Conclusion Global models as shown in the prevalence of world university rankings suggest the emerging hegemony in higher education of the world today. By the virtue of its achievement and “intellectual and moral supremacy,” a dominant social group becomes a “model for others to emulate,” who are drawn on to its path of development (Harvey, 2003). The concept of hegemony stipulated in Harvey (2003, pp. 26–86) is adopted here, as it is particularly instructive in understanding the impact of globalization in the context of proliferating neoliberal ideology and its policy adaptations. The case of Japan suggests that globalization affects higher education in a highly contextualized, nationally specific manner. However, more work is still needed to understand the full presence and extent of power to create and maintain hegemony, especially its various manifestations at the national, regional, and university levels. Concerning the wide usage and acceptance of particular sets of indices to objectify academic excellence, we can refer to earlier studies for insights and analytical frameworks. Bernard S. Cohn (1996), through his anthropological study of colonialism in India, showed how specific data could be employed as “investigative modalities,” devices to collect and organize “facts” that enabled the British to conquer the “epistemological space” (Shamsul, 2001). Although Cohn focused on incidents of state power, we shall now position and further analyze such modalities as the world university rankings as incidents of transnational power and their impact on emerging dimensions of the global construction of knowledge. Furthermore, the formation of today’s global models—the rise of American research universities, in particular—needs to be understood as part of an ongoing process of capitalist knowledge production and expansion. For this purpose, the extension of temporal and spatial units of analysis from the current study is necessary. From the early twentieth century when the United States was a “provincial outpost in the international world of science” (Geiger, 1986, p. 233), various factors contributed to the rise of its academic institutions, such as a massive influx of scholars from war-torn Europe to the United States and the establishment of the new infrastructure for the production and dissemination of scientific knowledge, with generous support from American capitalist philanthropies (see, for example, Geiger, 1986; Ninkovich, 1984; Nugent, 2002). Such historical development has much bearing on the understanding of today’s global higher education, corporate capitalism, and hegemony. Higher education has always been a contested field. Japanese universities are a strategic locale to critically observe the emergent models and contestations of power precisely because of the precarious position in which they are situated. Even those in the top tier of the national league

University Rankings, Global Models, and Emerging Hegemony  •  95

face enormous challenges to stay competitive and relevant in the global context where English is the dominant language of education and research. Exposed to pressures from inside and outside to “internationalize,” universities transform themselves, if not always willingly. In the process, the traditional value bestowed on domestic higher education, the preexisting national order, and power dynamics within institutions begin gradually to be altered, which will have a lasting impact on the identity of Japanese research universities. The analysis of the impact of global models suggests that the internationalization efforts by Japanese research universities will have to be fundamental rather than focusing on short-term goals to improve quantifiable indicators recognized by league tables. As noted earlier, increased global mobility, exchange, and competition provide tremendous opportunities to higher education today. At the same time, we need to be aware of the power to standardize and homogenize, as academia will benefit more from diversity and multiple intellectual trajectories.

Acknowledgment This article is a revised version of an article originally published in Journal of Studies in International Education (link: http://jsi.sagepub.com/), 13 (2), 2009, pp. 159–173. Copyright 2009 by Nuffic; published by SAGE Publications Ltd.

Notes 1 “QS topuniversities.com” web pages are neither dated nor do they record last updates. The quote here was retrieved from that website on July 13, 2007, explaining the peer review methodology employed for the 2006 survey. The line was subsequently revised and, as of July 31, 2008, reads as “the response we have received to date is growing increasingly geographically even in its breakdown.” 2 QS subsequently disclosed information on their “employer review” that constituted 10% of the overall rating and presented similar, if no better, representation of employers by country. Over the period 2006–2008, of a total of 2,339 responses, 346 employer respondents were from the United States, followed by 269 from the United Kingdom, 178 from Australia, 75 from Mexico, 75 from the Netherlands, 74 from Singapore, 69 from Russia, 64 from India, 60 from Argentina, 59 from Greece, 56 from Germany, 50 from Hong Kong, 45 from the Philippines, 41 from Iceland, 38 from Malaysia, 37 from Canada, 37 from Japan, 36 from France, 32 from South Korea, 25 from China, and others (Sowter, n.d.c). Respondents were allowed to give multiple responses that cover different regions of the world. Here again, Japan’s representation is disproportionately low, considering its position as the second largest economy in the world as measured by gross domestic product. 3 As of 2006, there were approximately 74,000 Chinese university students in Japan as compared with about 62,000 in the United States, although the latter attracts

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4

5

6

7

8

9

more than a quarter of the world’s foreign students (Institute of International Education, 2007; Japan Student Services Organization, 2007). The information was included in Power Point presentation material in the Chinese language dated February 2008, prepared by the China Scholarship Council for briefings on the scholarship program for Chinese and overseas university officials. The terms are a play on words reworked from “Japan bashing,” an expression often used to counter American criticism over Japan’s trade policies in the 1980s and the early 1990s. Now its new version, “Japan nothing,” is often used in the media and popular discussions, meaning Japan’s political and economic presence in East Asia is being replaced by China, an emerging key player. Nearly half of the country’s 18-year-old cohort advances to 756 universities nationwide, with a total student population exceeding 2.8 million (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology, 2007). Fewer than 35,000, or just more than 1% of the total figure, went to the most popular destination, the United States, in 2006–2007 (Institute of International Education, 2007). Annual national rankings of universities by Asahi shimbun newspaper, for instance, provide multifaceted evaluation categories for comparison, such as employment rates on graduation, scores for national professional exams, number of international students and faculty, and even numbers of students appearing in leading fashion magazines. For an overview of university rankings in Japan, see Yonezawa, Nakatsui, and Kobayashi (2003). For example, according to an informal survey conducted internally at Osaka University, more than 80% of all papers published between the fiscal years 2003 and 2005 by the natural science, engineering, and medical faculties were written in English. Research output of two faculties of letters and law, on the other hand, were predominantly Japanese language-based; an average of 91% and 87% of the total academic papers were written in the national language in the respective fields over the same period (Ogawa, 2006, pp. 1–3, 9). The percentages shown are the figures for clinical medicine and biology/life sciences added together. Data were compiled by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan, based on Thomson Corporation’s National Science Indicators, 1981–2006 (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, 2008, p. 80).

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University Rankings, Global Models, and Emerging Hegemony  •  97 Statistics, National Science Foundation. Retrieved on February 7, 2008, from http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/nsf07320/content.cfm?pub_id=1878&id=8 Huisman, J. (Ed.). (2008). World-class universities [Special issue]. Higher Education Policy, 21 (1). Institute for Higher Education Policy. (2006). Berlin principles on ranking of higher education institutions. Adopted on May 18–20, 2006, Berlin. Retrieved on July 20, 2008, from http://www.che.de/downloads/Berlin_Principles_IREG_534.pdf Institute of International Education, U.S.A. (2007). Open doors report 2007: Information and data tables. Retrieved on January 17, 2008, from http:// opendoors.iienetwork.org/ Ishikawa, M. (2007). Trends in educational migration and challenges for higher education in Japan. Paper presented at the Workshop on Transnational Education and Migration in Globalizing Cities, July 3–4, 2008, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. Ishikawa, M. (2011). Redefining internationalization in higher education: Global 30 and the making of global universities in Japan. In Willis, D. B. & Rappleye, J. (Eds.), Reimagining Japanese education: Borders, transfers, circulations and the comparative (pp. 193–223). Oxford, UK: Symposium Books. Japan Student Services Organization. (2007). International students in Japan. Retrieved on July 13, 2008, from http://www.jasso.go.jp/statistics/intl_student/ data07_e.html Karabel, J. (2005). The chosen: The hidden history of admission and exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Kariya, T. (2001). Kaisouka nihon to kyōiku kiki: Fubyōdo saiseisan kara iyoku kakusa (insentibu dibaido) shakai e [Stratified Japan and education in crisis: From the reproduction of inequality to an “incentive divide” society]. Tokyo: Yūshindo Kōbunsha. King, C. (2007). Of nations and top citations: Whose papers rate as elite? ScienceWatch, 18 (3). Retrieved on May 1, 2008, from http://archive.sciencewatch.com/mayjune2007/sw_may-june2007_page1.htm Kratoska, P. H. (2007, July). English-language academic publishing in Asia. ICAS 5 insert, supplement to IIAS (International Institute for Asian Studies) Newsletter, 44, 6. Lehmann, S., Jackson, A. D., & Lautrup, B. E. (2006). Measures for measure. Nature, 444, 1004–1005. Marginson, S. (2006). Global university rankings at the end of 2006: Is this the hierarchy we have to have? Paper presented to the Workshop on Institutional Diversity: Ranking and Typologies in Higher Education, OECD/IMHE & Hochschulrektorenkonferenz, December 4–5, 2006, Bonn, Germany. Marginson, S., and van der Wende, M. (2007). To rank or to be ranked: The impact of global rankings in higher education. Journal of Studies in International Education, 11, 306–329. Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan. (2007). Gakko kihon chosa [Statistics of schools] fiscal year 2007. Retrieved on July 18, 2008, from http://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/toukei/001/08010901/index.htm Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan. (2008). Indicators of science and technology 2008. Tokyo: Nikkei insatsu. Ninkovich, F. (1984). The Rockefeller Foundation, China, and cultural change. Journal of American History, 70 (4), 799–820.

98  •  Mayumi Ishikawa Nugent, D. (2002). Introduction. In D. Nugent (Ed.), Locating capitalism in time and space: Global restructuring, politics, and identity (pp. 1–59). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Ogawa, Y. (2006). Osaka daigaku kokusai kyodo kenkyu koryu genjo bunseki: gakujutsu ronbun chosa kara [Status of international collaborative research at Osaka University: From a study of academic papers], appendix I:1–27. In Office for International Planning and Programs, Sekai no naka no Osaka Daigaku: Kokusaikouryu ni kansuru genjobunseki hokokusho [Situation analysis report— Osaka University in the world: Globalization of higher education and its impact on the university’s international activities] (IPP working paper series no. 1). Osaka, Japan: Office for International Planning and Programs, Osaka University. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. (2007). Education at a glance 2007: OECD indicators. Paris: Author. Roden, D. (1980). Schooldays in Imperial Japan: A study in the culture of a student elite. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Sadlak, J., & Liu, N. C. (Eds.). (2007). The world-class university and ranking: Aiming beyond status. Bucharest, Romania: UNESCO-CEPES. Schevitz, T. (2008, March 5). Stanford, UC Berkeley to set up Saudi college. San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved on March 6, 2008, from http://www.sfgate.com/ cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/05/BAHBVDFQ7.DTL&hw=berkeley+stanfor d+king+abdullah+university&sn=002&sc=848 Shamsul, A. B. (2001). A history of an identity, an identity of a history: The idea and practice of “Malayness” in Malaysia reconsidered. Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 32 (3), 355–366. Sidhu, R. K. (2006). Universities and globalization: To market, to market. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Sidhu, R. K. (2007). Global schoolhouse: Which world in Singapore? Paper presented at the Workshop on Transnational Education and Migration in Globalizing Cities, July 3–4, 2007, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. Soares, J. A. (2007). The power of privilege: Yale and America’s elite colleges. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Sowter, B. (n.d.a). 2006. Peer review response analysis. QS TOPUNIVERSITIES. Retrieved on July 31, 2008, from http://www.topuniversities.com/ worlduniversityrankings/university_rankings_news/article/2006_peer_review_ response_analysis/ Sowter, B. (n.d.b). Times Higher Education—QS university rankings 2007. QS TOPUNIVERSITIES. Retrieved on July 31, 2008, from http://www.topuniversities. com/worlduniversityrankings/university_rankings_news/article/thes_qs_world_ university_rankings_2007/ Sowter, B. (n.d.c). 2008. Employer review response analysis. QS TOPUNIVERSITIES. Retrieved on July 17, 2009, http://www.topuniversities.com/ worlduniversityrankings/university_rankings_news/article/2008_employer_ review_response_analysis/ Takeuchi, Y. (1999). Gakureki kizoku no eikō to zasetsu [Glory and fall of academic aristocracy]. Tokyo: Chūōkōron shinsha. Wang, Y. (2007, June 5). 5,000 more students a year to study overseas. China Daily. Retrieved on January 9, 2009, from http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/ china/2007-06/05/content_886976.htm

University Rankings, Global Models, and Emerging Hegemony  •  99 Xiang, B. (2003). Emigration from China: A sending country perspective. International Migration, 41 (3), 21–48. Yomiuri online. (2008, January 11). Bei daigaku erabu toppusō mo [Some top students choose American universities]. Retrieved on July 1, 2008, from http:// www.yomiuri.co.jp/kyoiku/renai/20080111us41.htm Yomiuri online. (2008, May 30). Mezase Harvard dai: Benesse ga senmonjuku o kaisetsu [Aiming at Harvard University: Benesse Corporation opened a new cram school]. Retrieved on July 1, 2008, from http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/kyoiku/ news/20080530-OYT8T00401.htm Yonezawa, A., Nakatsui, I., & Kobayashi, T. (2003). University rankings in Japan. Higher Education in Europe, 27 (4), 373–382.

7

The Corporatization of National Universities in Finland

Jussi Välimaa

Introduction In the Nordic countries, universities have traditionally been understood and defined as national cultural institutions. This is true especially in Finland, where the national university known as the Imperial Alexander University (later the University of Helsinki) created a public sphere that supported the cultural, political, and social processes of the emerging Finnish nationalism in the nineteenth century and those of the Finnish nation-state in the twentieth century (Välimaa, 2000). This public sphere was the only one in Finland for the greater part of the nineteenth century during Finland’s transformation from a geographical concept under the Swedish Kingdom into a political concept as part of the Russian Empire, an autonomous Grand Duchy with its own societal institutions (Thaden, 1984; Välimaa, 2000). According to Wittrock (1993), European higher education institutions (HEIs) made “a good deal” with the emerging nation-states at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The incorporation of research into universities during the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries also promoted the growth and the development of the emerging industries. In return, universities were secured a steady public funding and also, a high social status, because they trained the elites in and for the Nordic societies (Wittrock, 1993). This good deal with the nation-states continued throughout the twentieth century, which paved the way for the expansion of higher 101

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education after the Second World War. The emerging Finnish welfare state supported the development of education, which led to the mass higher education in the 1970s. What basically changed with the mass higher education was the scale of the public funding and the number of social expectations, which led to growing demands for taking care of the “Third Mission” of the universities in the 1990s. However, the story of the expansion came to an end by the beginning of the new millennium. Together with the globalization of higher education and the introduction of a number of neoliberally inspired governance mechanisms and tools (such as the New Public Management), the landscape of the Nordic higher education changed and keeps changing. Higher education institutions have been at the crossroads of many aspects of the processes of globalization because, for centuries, universities have argued for continuing discipline-based, international traditions. Simultaneously, however, universities have been national cultural institutions taking care of the education of the national elites and—especially in the Nordic countries—universities have served the purposes of the Lutheran Churches by training priests. Furthermore, universities have provided a cultural basis and an academic basis for disciplines (such as history, sociology, and national economics) supporting the existence of a nation-state as a social entity (Beck, 1999). According to Beerkens (2004), universities together with other national institutions (such as courts, parliaments, and national broadcasting companies) have not only been the symbols of sovereign state but have encompassed social arrangements, such as citizenship, norms, values, solidarity, and identity. Especially in Finland and Norway, HEIs have been strong national institutions in the creation of national identities (Vabo, 2002; Välimaa, 2000). This study examines how this traditional role of universities is changing in Finland, in the globalized world. The main objective is to analyze how and why traditional nation-building universities have been changed into public corporations. In Finland, this change began in the 1990s and, in 2009, it culminated in the new Universities Act (558/2009), which separated universities from the nation-state. I will analyze the main points of the lawmaking process and public debates, because they provide indicators of the changes in the understandings of the nature of higher education and the role it should play in society. Theoretically, this study is rooted in historical research that emphasizes a relevant description as a precondition for understanding social changes. Empirically, this study is based on the analysis of public documents produced during the making of the Universities Act and selected articles published in two Finnish newspapers in 2009. A more detailed empirical analyses and historical description of the process has been presented in an article written in Finnish (Välimaa, 2011).

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The Main Traditions of Finnish Higher Education in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Universities and other HEIs have had a crucial role in the development of the Finnish nation and nation-state. The importance of the first university in Finland, the Royal Academy in Åbo, established in 1640, was made clear when it was moved to the new capital (Helsinki) and renamed in 1827 as the Imperial Alexander University (later the University of Helsinki). This imperial renaming was important, because Finland had become part of the Russian Empire during the Napoleonic wars (in 1808–1809), which discontinued 700 years of Finland’s history as a part of the Swedish Kingdom. The renaming also showed how important it was for the new ruler of Finland, Czar Alexander I, to secure the loyalty of this autonomous Grand Duchy, which was located close to St. Petersburg, the capital of Russia. The Imperial Alexander University was made responsible for the training of civil servants for the country (the monopoly was secured in 1819) and priests for the national Lutheran Church. Without going into historical details (see Välimaa, 2000), it is clear that the most important social and political role this one and only national university played was to provide a cauldron for the emerging nation-state. This metaphor refers to the cultural and political processes it supported or even initiated. The main cultural process was related to nationalism. The Russian rulers allowed this revolutionary idea of the nineteenth century to be developed in Finland, because it was aimed mainly against Sweden and the Swedes, the former rulers of Finland. Finnish nationalism began as a cultural movement, producing folk-songbased volumes such as Kalevala, which was equated with the Iliad and the Odyssey soon after it was published in the 1830s. As a cultural movement, Finnish nationalism aimed at showing that it was possible to reach a high cultural level in Finnish language, spoken mainly by peasants in the society ruled by the Swedish speakers and Swedish language and culture. This cultural movement was quite soon developed and organized into a political movement called Fennomans, with the aim to create a Finnish-speaking Finland. This political movement was rooted in the Hegelian philosophical thought through the spokesman of the Finnish nationalistic movement, J. V. Snellman—a professor of philosophy in the Imperial Alexander University and later a senator in the national government. Snellman formulated the aims of the cultural movement in the spirit of Hegelian tradition, replacing the “spirit of history” with the concept of state. According to Snellman, the development of a nation will be fulfilled through the state. In his ideology the state was a territory wherein individuals promoted their morality and increased the common good (Alapuro, 1988). For Snellman, the nation was primarily a moral entity. However, if we follow the reasoning of Snellman, there can be no state without a nation and no nation without a language.

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Therefore, politically the aim of the Finnish nationalists was “to educate the nation and to nationalize the educated,” as the Fennomans put it. The national Imperial Alexander University was a crucial actor in this process, because it provided a social forum and a public sphere for debates and discussions. The university was actually the first and, for a long time, the only public sphere, where different views were able to debate and interact with one another. Simultaneously, the university was the educator of the elite of the society, providing also a channel for upward social mobility during the nineteenth century in a society based on strictly defined social barriers and the organization of society according to four estates: peasants, clergy, bourgeois, nobility. These matters of fact were important for the social status of Finnish higher education, because many of the leading characters of the Fennoman movement (and their opponents as well) worked at the Imperial Alexander University. Furthermore, from the perspective of civil society, it has been argued that “it was in the academic setting that the idea of civic activity outside the bureaucratic system, i.e., in associations, the free press, and parliamentary politics, finally emerged and developed” (Klinge, 1992, p. 37). The student associations also gave models for emerging political parties. Consequently, to promote the enlightenment of the common people, the university professors and students published books, and later a newspaper, and learned Finnish themselves. The nationally minded students were, in turn, one of the most important social channels through which the social, cultural, and political ideas were spread throughout the country (Välimaa, 2000). The education of the nation was further strengthened by teachertraining seminars, which were established between the 1860s and 1920s (Välimaa, 1996). The cultural and political basis for the high status of the national university in particular, and the Finnish higher education in general, was laid down during the nineteenth century, but it was fully developed in the twentieth century. The University of Helsinki enjoyed a very high social status in Finland between WWI and WWII. The University of Helsinki and two other universities established in the 1920s continued producing the elite of the Finnish society together with a technical university and two business schools, which served the more practical needs of the expanding industry and commerce (Välimaa, 2000). The social role of universities changed after WWII. The role of education was essential in the building of the Nordic welfare state in Finland and in the other Nordic countries. As for higher education, this meant the beginning of the expansion of higher education from the late 1950s onward. Within a period of 30 years, the Finnish HEIs spread throughout the country, and Finnish higher education expanded into a mass and even a universal higher education system. This latter phase was reached in the 1990s, when the sector of polytechnics was established (Välimaa, 2000). About 80% of every

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age cohort now has a starting place in higher education, in the twenty-first century. The cultural, political and, increasingly, economic role of HEIs has been defined as central for the development of Finnish culture and national economy. In the light of the history of Finnish higher education, it is quite easy to see why Finnish universities have been understood as national cultural institutions. In this context, it has been natural that Finnish academics publish the main research outcomes of their fields in popular books in Finnish. This contributes to public debates and helps to maintain a national public sphere. However, the strong role of universities as national cultural institutions has become weaker in the 1990s, because of the harsh economic times and the globalization of national economies and because the relative advantage of a higher education degree has diminished in the labor markets owing to the rapid increase of the number of MA degree holders. The corporatization of national cultural institutions is one of the main consequences of these economic and political changes in Finland. In what follows, I will analyze the development that led to the transformation of national universities into corporate entities.

The Road Paving the Way to Corporate Universities in Finland “Globalization Shock” An important starting point for the recent changes in Finnish higher education was the national experience of a hard economic recession, which hit Finland at the beginning of the 1990s. The economic recession meant the end of the world of a strong and stable commercial relationship with Soviet Russia, which had been rather predictable,. Owing to the collapse of the Soviet Union, Finland lost some 150,000 jobs, basically overnight. It took many years before the information technologies and communication industry cluster (mainly with the help of Nokia) was able to assist the Finnish national economy in recovering again. Recession also meant the end of an economic boom that had lasted for more than a decade. For Finnish higher education, these economic difficulties meant a sudden end of the expanding higher education budgets and a deep dive into budget cuts (Välimaa, 1994). The difficulties were so hard and undisputable that every Finnish academic was forced to see the need to do things differently. This economic shock was a real “globalization shock” to the Finnish society and higher education. This expression refers to a hard experience of living in the middle of suddenly increasing uncertainty, under the social conditions of competition between universities and within them between the basic units and individuals. This all meant a radical change in the mental climate

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of Finnish higher education. With the globalization shock, it became socially acceptable to increase cooperation with companies, industry, and other sectors of the society. In the 1970s and 1980s, this activity was practically forbidden by the Ministry of Education and supported by critical academics who said academic freedom would degenerate. Though the trend of commercialization is common to most industrialized countries, the speed of changes was typical to Finland, where social changes often are implemented rapidly. Two statistical trends reveal the rapidity of the changes in Finnish higher education. First, there are the changes in the funding structures. The proportion of public funding of higher education from the budget of the Ministry of Education decreased by 21% between 1990 and 2001 (from 84% to 63%), while the amount of external funding grew almost sixfold (KOTA database). This was stabilized as the normal level of public funding from the budget of the Ministry of Education in the new millennium. The second trend related to global economy is the increase in the number of temporary contracts of researchers and the decrease in the number of permanent academic staff (mainly professors and lecturers). To illustrate this change, the proportion of temporary academic staff members was 0.2 persons to 1 person in permanent position in 1990.1 In 2008, this figure had grown into 1.1 temporary persons to 1 permanent staff member. This means that the majority of Finnish university staff members are working on fixedterm contracts. Pejorative names such as “stump workers” (pätkätyöläinen) or “project researchers” (projektitutkija) indicate quite well the process of proletarization and their low status inside and outside universities. Simultaneously, however, the number of university students increased from 110,000 students to 164,000 students between 1990 and 2008, which means that the number of students per teacher (21 students per teacher) is 50% higher now than it was in the early 1990s (Välimaa, 2011). In addition to these changes in the structure of personnel at the universities, Finland as a society has invested heavily in research and development—especially after the recession. According to statistics from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Finland has been well above the average in research investments per gross domestic product for more than 10 years. In 2006, Finland invested 3.5% in research and development, whereas the OECD average is 2.3% (Hölttä, 2010). Furthermore, the sector of higher vocational education was established in the middle of the recession in 1991. These new HEIs (ammattikorkeakoulu, in Finnish) were influenced by the ideas of German Fachhochschulen of providing high-quality vocational training to train a high-quality labor force for the increasingly competitive and globally challenged labor markets. The aim was to establish a binary system with two equal but different sectors of higher education. Their official name was translated into English as

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polytechnics, but they have begun to call themselves universities of applied sciences during the new millennium (Välimaa & Neuvonen-Rauhala, 2008). Globalization as a topic appeared in the Finnish political agenda at the turn of the new millennium. The interest in globalization as a social phenomenon has not only remained strong among academic researchers but there is a great sensitivity about discussing the impacts of economic globalization on Finnish society. The sensitivity was rooted in the economic recession and in the success of Finnish information technology companies in the global marketplace. Public interest in the topic is supported by the interest Finnish political leaders have shown in it. It is in this social context that the globalization of Finnish higher education has been debated during the new millennium. There have been published a number of reports sponsored by the Finnish government (Brunila, 2004); by the National Fund for Research and Development (Väyrynen, 1999); by the Ministry of Education (Rantanen 2004); and by the National Fund for Research and Development (Kankaala et al., 2004), together with a lively debate in the newspapers. What is common to these papers and reports is the conviction that the high quality of universities and polytechnics is defined as very important for maintaining and improving the economic competitiveness of Finland and Finnish enterprises (see Välimaa, 2005). The same line of reasoning was continued in the reports preparing the university mergers and the new universities act (Välimaa, 2011). Changes in Legislation The purpose of this historical contextualization is to show that the selfunderstanding of Finnish academics has changed simultaneously with the social changes and processes of globalization. On the one hand, these changes are related to changes in Finnish society and national economics, with information and communications technology becoming an important export industry in and for Finland. On the other hand, these changes have also challenged traditional administrative and management structures inside universities, because of the explosion of the new personnel categories, expanding social and societal expectations expressed as needs to enhance the “third mission” of HEIs. All these factors have challenged traditional administrative procedures at universities, creating new demands for efficient project and personnel management. Already in the 1990s, the rectors of Finnish HEIs insisted in particular on more economic and internal freedom for universities. The problems related to decreasing public funding and the increasing numbers of temporary academic staff have also drawn public attention to universities. These problems have been seen increasingly in the context of competitive globalized economy and higher education, because the production of knowledge has been defined as crucial for the effectiveness

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and competitiveness of the national economy in Finland—as in other parts of the globe. These changes have also challenged Finnish legislators to reform the legal framework for universities in an attempt to react to global and national pressures (Välimaa, 2011). Legislation is an efficient political instrument in the Nordic countries, where legislators (national parliaments and governments) set the limits and rules for the actions of HEIs. The changes of higher education legislation were launched by the Universities Act of 1997 in which one of the aims was to increase institutional autonomy by making it easier to recruit professors and to establish or discontinue units and departments. Traditionally, professors had been nominated by the president of the Republic, and organizational matters (reorganizations and establishments of new units) were decided by the Ministry of Education. This law made it possible to introduce external members to university boards. Most universities utilized this possibility, at least to some extent (Välimaa & Jalkanen, 2000). In the amendments to this law, the “third mission of universities” was defined as one of the objectives for universities in 2004. Two years later, it became possible to establish university funds and, in 2006, universities were given the right to offer chargeable education to students outside the European Union. In fact, all these amendments can be found as paragraphs in the Universities Act of 2009. Therefore, from a legal point of view, it can be said that all these changes are well in line with the new Universities Act that was accepted by the Finnish Parliament in 2009. In addition to legislative changes, the structures of the Finnish higher education system have been reorganized through three recent merger operations. These have taken place in Eastern Finland, where two universities were merged together as the University of Eastern Finland; in the western part of the country, where a business school merged with the University of Turku; and in the capital, where a business school, a technical university, and a university of arts and design were forced to merge into Aalto University, aiming to become a “world-class university” (Ursin et al., 2010).

The Main Contents of the Universities Act 558/2009 The main aim of the Finnish legislators is to increase the institutional autonomy of universities, if and when one believes the background memo written by the Ministry of Education to support the Universities Act 558/2009 (Background memos, 2009). This objective is hoped to be reached through four main ways. First, the universities are separated from the state budget. Universities are made “independent legal personalities” (meaning public corporations), able to make contracts and run their own economic activities. It is remarkable that this is the first time the Finnish universities are defined as independent economic entities. Universities are allowed to

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own their properties, to receive donations and to make capital investments, and to use their profits for supporting teaching or research. Two universities (Aalto University and Technical University of Tampere) decided on being foundation-based universities, which gives them more opportunities as an employer to organize their workforce. However, unrelated to their administrative structures, the running operational costs of all universities will be covered by the funding from the Ministry of Education. According to the law, 64.5% of the present-day total costs will be covered by the budget of the Ministry of Education (Background memos, 2009). All these changes mean that Finnish universities are separated from the nation-state machinery. Second, the most important decision-making body in the universities will be the University Board, which is responsible for the decisions on management and for making the strategy for the university. According to the original proposition, there was to be a minimum of 50% external representation and a chairperson in the university boards. External members were expected to make the decision-making processes more efficient and impartial, because they do not participate in internal conflicts and group interests within the universities. It was also assumed that this would make universities more independent of the nation-state (Background memos, 2009). However, this governmental proposal was rejected by the constitutional committee, because it was interpreted as violating the Finnish Constitution according to which universities have autonomy in all their internal matters. Therefore, the minimum number of external representatives was changed to 40%. This was a bitter political loss for the national government. Another change to the original suggestion was the fact that the University Collegium, which is a new decision-making body and consists of elected student and staff representatives, has the power to accept annual budget plans and annual economic reports made by the University Board. This more powerful role was another matter not anticipated by the government proposal, which originally had reserved a much weaker role for the Collegium, one that focused merely on academic and student matters (such as curricula and degree regulations). The third important change in the legislation makes university rectors really powerful actors in the university. According to the Universities Act, the rector is nominated by the University Board instead of the traditional election by university staff and students. This radical change of loyalty makes university rectors practically the executive managers of the university corporation. It also strengthens the actual power of the rector, who is responsible for university management, the preparation of university policies, and the execution of University Board decisions. Furthermore, universities are expected to create more straightforward line organization models, because deans are nominated by the university rector and the heads

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of departments consequently by the deans. All democratic bodies are made weaker at the school and departmental levels, and the only institutional level democratic body, Collegium, has only limited power to control the University Board through accepting their annual reports. According to the legislator, all these changes aim at making the decision-making processes more efficient and faster (Background memos, 2009). The most important change for the academic staff was, perhaps, the discontinuation of their status as civil servant, which was changed into a work contract relationship with the employer (the university). Professors and other academic staff and administrative staff are no longer civil servants but employees hired by their universities on a contractual basis. According to the official background memo, the argument supporting this radical change is the need to increase the “flexibility” of the academic work force. In practice, this means that it will be easier to fire university staff members. This new flexibility has already been used by some Finnish universities that have fired their staff members in the name of economic efficiency. It is important, however, that the position of the academic staff is secured by the concept of academic freedom. According to the legislator, universities are not allowed to fire academic staff if it endangers academic freedom. Academic freedom and institutional autonomy are also mentioned in the Finnish Constitution (Välimaa, 2011). According to the Ministry of Education, the general aim of the university reform and the mergers is to generate an (inter)nationally more competitive network of HEIs to enhance the quality of research and education and to identify and recognize strategic areas in research and education (Ministry of Education, 2008). This vision for the future of Finnish universities can be contrasted with the analysis of the contents of the background memo. Table 7.1  The number of the most relevant words found in the Act and the background memos of the Universities Act 558/2009 Catchwords

Number of words

Administration/management

206

Research

160

Ministry of Education

153

Teaching

109

Leadership

108

(University) Board

86

Economy

63

Science

15

Bildung

6

Culture

5

Learning

2

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I searched the most relevant words of the reform from the background memo (Background memos, 2009) and Universities Act by using a simple search command in MS Word. The number of these relevant words found is tabulated in Table 7.1. Owing to the fact that the method used is quite simple, one should not make too radical conclusions on the contents of the Act. However, it does say something about the emphases the legislators have had in their minds. It is quite natural that the words related to governance (administration, management, leadership, board, Ministry of Education) have been mentioned several times in the documents. After all, the Universities Act aims at reforming the governance of universities. The catchwords “administration/ management” are one word in Finnish (hallinto), which refers to both administrative practices and the management of universities. Traditionally, these have not been separated from each other in universities, but the new act aims to introduce a sharper distinction between these two activities. In fact, the new legislation aims to create management structures and a new management vocabulary that replaces the old administration practices and vocabularies. The catchwords “teaching” and “research” are also mentioned many times but normally in relation to teaching and research staff, because their status is changed, but they do not refer to teaching and/or research tasks. What is really striking is the fact that the main functions of the traditional cultural institution, namely “bildung” (in the lack of a proper English word, I use a German one), “culture,” and “learning,” are almost absent in these documents. When taking a closer look at the references to learning, one sees that this catchword is mentioned first in a context wherein learning is seen as relevant to working life and the second time in the context of improving learning, innovations, and regional impact. These examples clearly reveal the goals of the legislators, learning should be a useful activity that serves the needs of the labor market and the economy (Välimaa, 2011). To reword the vision of the Ministry of Education: the general aim of the university reform and the mergers is to make Finnish universities more competitive by making them business-like corporations that are able to provide world-class research and education and identify and recognize their strategic strengths in research and education. In other words, the aim is to change traditional cultural institutions into corporate universities with clear management structures and strategies, with as little internal democracy as possible, and able to act as independent economic entities.

Public Debates on the Universities Act The description of the main contents of the Universities Act 558/2009 does not, however, mean that the process of making the law would have been an easy one. Quite the contrary, public debates in the media and

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the Finnish Parliament were exceptionally lively and fierce in the Finnish political context. Atypical of Finland, there were also demonstrations on the streets against the Universities Act in Helsinki, the capital of Finland, and in other cities. The demonstrators were especially concerned about the loss of autonomy, because of the existence of external members in the university board. They were carrying placards saying “THIS IS WHAT AUTONOMY LOOKS LIKE” and “SHAME ON YOU MINEDU.” The demonstrators were mainly students. Following Finnish traditions, they twice occupied the main building of the University of Helsinki—one of the major symbolic representations of higher education in Finland—but left the building peacefully the next morning after having made fresh coffee for the administrative staff working there. The debates on the Universities Act even made the headlines of Finnish newspapers, and the public debates continued throughout the spring term 2009, from January to June 2009. In what follows, I will analyze the main arguments in favor of and against the law in two Finnish newspapers2 to show the main dividing lines of argumentation on the nature of the universities and their role in society. The Main Groups For and Against the Reform: “Corporatists” and “Humboldtians” The Minister of Education, Henna Virkkunen, said the Universities Act is the second best thing that has happened to universities after their establishment when announcing the government proposal for the new Universities Act in February 2009 (Liiten, 2009). She continued that this is the answer to Finnish universities’ long-standing hope for reform that gives them more autonomy and a broader and stronger funding basis. The argument is true, because the rectors of Finnish universities had made a declaration in 2005 in which they insisted on more economic and internal autonomy for the universities. However, according to a group of professors and academics at the University of Helsinki, the academic staff never supported their demand. In fact, their opinion was not even asked for. (Keinonen et al., 2009) The group of supporters of the reform, called here “corporatists,” consisted mainly of the members of the party of the Minister of Education. They belong to the National Coalition Party, which is a right-wing party dominating the government. More moderate supporters came from other governmental parties (The Green League of Finland, the Centre Party, and the Swedish People’s Party). The corporatists supported the government proposition in public debates and in the Parliament. The resisters of the reform, called here the “Humboldtians,” consisted of a more heterogeneous group ranging from the political opposition (Finnish Social Democratic Party and Left Alliance) to academic labor unions; university professors and students.

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Four main topics discussed in public debates and in the Parliament manifest themselves clearly in my data. The first debate focused on the nature of the legislative process. The corporatists said that the process was extremely open, because all the material was visible on the Web sites. The Minister of Education, Henna Virkkunen, also emphasized the fact that several changes had been made to the government’s proposition before it was presented to the Parliament for a discussion and approval (Virkkunen, 2009). These discussions were countered by the argument that the openness of a political process is not defined by the amount of material available on the Web pages, but by discussing the nature of universities and the direction in which they should be developed. Lacking this kind of debate, one cannot speak about an open political process (Peltokoski & Kaitila, 2009). This criticism was supported by the fact that the committee preparing the new act was strictly confidential. This debate is clearly rooted in different definitions of political action. The corporatists represented a neoliberal vision, according to which the aim is to take politics out of politics and to treat political problems as technical issues—such as pointing out that materials are available on the Web pages. The Humboldtians, in turn, emphasized the need for a political debate on the nature of a major reform in Finnish society. The second debate focused on the nature of institutional autonomy (which the new act aims at increasing). According to the corporatists, the introduction of external members will tie the universities more closely to “the surrounding society” and will make universities stronger in their negotiations with the representatives of the nation-state (Background memos, 2009, p. 59), meaning the Ministry of Education (Nyman, 2009). These two arguments are interesting, because implicitly they say that universities should not serve the needs of the nation-state but be reactive to the needs of the surrounding society. The surrounding society is not defined more precisely, but evidently it means local communities, business, and industry. The Humboldtians, in turn, argued that institutional autonomy means internally defined autonomy, which is based on the principles of academic freedom and freedom from market forces. In fact, they said that universities should have full freedom to decide on all their internal matters, including whether to have external members on the university boards (Keinonen et al., 2009). The third debate focused on the nature of the university. The Corporatists argued that the purpose of this Universities Act is to enable the establishment of world-class universities (Vahasalo, 2009; Virkkunen, 2009). It should be added that simultaneously with this reform, three mergers of universities were implemented. The most famous of these mergers is the establishment of the new “Aalto University.” According to the corporatists’ vision, the outcome will be a university that better serves the needs of the surrounding society and delivers high-quality teaching and world-class research. Who

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could resist these noble visions? In fact, nobody. The problem according to the Humboldtians was, however, the fact that this vision pays no attention to the traditional role of universities: the cultivation of national culture and the education of free-minded citizens for the nation (Kolbe, 2009). In fact, the Humboldtians argued that these brave new universities will be steered by the invisible hand of the markets rather than the educational needs of young citizens. With this argument, the Humboldtians made a strong reference to the tradition of nation-building universities as national cultural institutions. The fourth debate focused on the status of the university staff members. Traditionally, all permanent university staff members have been civil servants. This category has included both administrative (secretaries, librarians, amanuenses) and academic staff (professors and lecturers). According to corporatists, this state of affairs needed to be changed, because there was a need for a more “flexible” use of staff resources. No other arguments were expressed in public. All the academic labor unions resisted this radical change. Some of the Humboldtians also saw it as an act endangering academic freedom and creating problems, because public duties and tasks require civil servant status. However, these arguments were not supported by political parties, except for the Left Alliance. In fact, the national government was not willing even to discuss this matter. On the Debate in the Finnish Parliament The Universities Act was vigorously debated in the Finnish Parliament. Basically, the dividing line for and against the law followed the distinction between the governmental parties and the political opposition. However, some Green League members did not support the proposal they had already accepted as part of the government. They raised critical voices against the suggestion that external members were in the majority on the University Boards. It was also quite clear that the Social Democratic Party had difficulties in deciding whether it should support or resist the law, because it was the Social Democratic minister who had originally launched the reform process in the previous government. This is to say that the dividing lines were quite blurred, because they did not follow the traditional distinction between the government and the opposition. Opinions were influenced by attitudes toward the position of the “stump researchers,” who are the major supporters of the Green League. The Left Alliance, in turn, argued that this law will open up Finnish universities to market forces. Together with Social Democrats, they feared that the aim is to create status hierarchies in the Finnish system of higher education. The Centre Party could have supported the Social Democrats—their partner in the previous government—but they decided to stay loyal to the government proposition (Välimaa, 2011).

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Discussion Despite the fact that Finnish universities have been reformed radically, a line of development that would be exactly the same in all the Nordic countries cannot be found. In Norway, a similar reform was attempted at the beginning of the new millennium, but it failed because of the suggested change of the professors’ status as civil servants. In Sweden, the debates on a reform similar to that in Finland are lively, but nothing much has been done yet. In Denmark, however, the radical structural changes that have been implemented aim at establishing world-class universities. I argue that the historical changes of higher education systems do follow their national routes of development despite common international trends, especially in Northern Europe, where universities have been one of the crucial social forces shaping the countries and societies. Despite the fact that universities no longer exist as unanimously defined national cultural institutions, they do still have their social functions as cultural institutions. In Finland, the globalization shock had a strong impact on the national understanding of higher education. In this context, it is perhaps natural that the role of higher education and research and development is considered crucial for the success of the Finnish nation-state. This is an interesting matter from two perspectives. First, contrary to what many hyperglobalizers (Held et al., 1999) have assumed, the Finnish nation-state continues to be an active player in the globalization game and is not willing to give away its authority and power upward or downward. Second, the fact that the system of education is considered crucial for the success of Finland in the global marketplace is important for policy making. Finnish debates also indicate that global competition in higher education has been taken seriously, which in itself is a global phenomenon. It is also quite remarkable that practically no references have been made to the Bologna Process during the process of making the new universities act. One of the reasons may be the fact that the Bologna Process is no longer seen as a process that brings new dynamics to Finnish higher education. Academically, one interesting aspect is the fact that the applied management model is taken from business enterprises rather than from other universities, even though the reforms are inspired by a “world-class university” discourse. The management model repeats quite an old-fashioned assembly line model used in industrial mass production. Historically speaking, this is nothing new, because the same kind of borrowing from dominant organizational models can be detected in the medieval universities, which replicated the guild model in their organizational and study structures, and the same phenomenon was reiterated in the nineteenth century Humboldtian university, which repeated the bureaucratic structures of their societies (see Rashdall, 1936; Wittrock, 1993). However, despite all these changes in the managerial structures and

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vocabularies, the nature of academic work (teaching and research) remains the same. Collegiality continues to be the main social form in the academic world, because the nature of the problems—and therefore the decisions on how to solve them—require the participation of all those who contribute to the teaching or research processes. It remains to be seen how well Finnish academics are able to maintain their collegial traditions in face of the pressures of efficiency demands. Analyzing this university reform as an example of right-wing policies would be quite a problematic question, because the preparations for this reform were launched already by the previous government dominated by the Social Democrats. It is also difficult to define this reform as a good example of the New Public Management inspired by pure neoliberal policies, because it is more like a hybrid of state control (and funding), academic freedom, and institutional autonomy. Therefore, in this case, the fact that neither academic labor unions nor students were able to raise a political movement against this reform is more important than analyzing the New Public Management (see Välimaa, 2005). This shows that our understanding of the social role of universities and that of higher education in the Finnish society has changed. I have tried to show that this social phenomenon needs to be taken seriously because it is reality. Focusing on Finland—a country that has strong national and nationalistic traditions of higher education—may help us to see how the pressures of globalization are translated into national policies in the field of higher education. A crucial catchphrase in the translation processes has been the concept and image of a “world-class university.” This catchphrase has not been taken from the Bologna Process but from global debates, and it has been very useful politically, because it needs no definition. As a popular phrase, it seems to be self-evident. In Finland, world-class university ensisages an idealized image of an American research university. Harvard and MIT are the most often mentioned higher education mirages in the policy desert. The concept has been used by Finnish politicians who compare the Finnish higher education system with the best single universities in the world, instead of taking the trouble to compare it with other higher education systems (see Välimaa, 2005). In this kind of comparative setting, the conclusion is always the same: we should do something to our universities to make them worldclass. This is the mechanism through which the pressures of globalization are translated into national higher education policies in a Nordic nation-state. Is this mechanism a global phenomenon? Returning to the opening idea of the chapter, I would like to ask: what kind of public sphere do the new corporate, world-class universities create in Finland? The basic tension between a corporate university and a public university is this: in a corporate university, the academics are supposed to take seriously the strategy of the university as an institution, whereas in a

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national university, academics have ties of loyalty to the nation-state. It is, indeed, important that corporate universities are no longer open public spheres but corporations that try to survive in the competition with other universities. It is also evident that the social role of universities as national cultural institutions is changing. In Europe, the role of the nation-state is weakened also by the Bologna Process, which is a homogenizing social force in European higher education. In addition to that, the social atmosphere created by a number of university league tables supports social contexts for higher education policies, whereby every academic has to take competition and the need to publish in international refereed journals seriously. Popular books and articles that focus on national and regional audiences are not favored by the universities, who try to be successful in the ranking rat race. Finnish language books are not even favored by the Finnish Ministry of Education, which is infected by the disease of measuring the university’s quality on the basis of its international publications in refereed journals. Taking all these social forces and pressures together, it seems probable that the national public sphere opened and maintained by Finnish academics and universities is fading away.

Notes 1 In Finland, the concept and social structure of a tenure track did not exist before 2010. Traditionally, permanent staff members have been civil servants with all their rights and duties. For this reason, I use the categories of permanent staff (meaning civil servants) and temporary staff. 2 Helsingin Sanomat (HS) is the most important national newspaper, whereas Keskisuomalainen (KSML) represents a typical midsized provincial newspaper. Forty-seven articles on the Universities Act were published in these newspapers between January and June 2009.

References Alapuro, R. (1988). State and revolution in Finland. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Background memos. (2009). www.minedu.fi/OPM/Koulutus/koulutuspolitiikka/ Hankkeet/yliopistolaitoksen uudistaminen Hallituksen esitys Eduskunnalle uudeksi yliopistolaiksi [Governmental proposal for new Universities Act] 14.8.2008, 20.2.2009 and 558/2009. Beck, U. (1999). Mitä globalisaatio on? Virhekäsityksiä ja poliittisia vastauksia [Was ist globalisierung? Irrtümer des Globalismus—Antworten auf Globalisierung] (Tapani Hietaniemi, Trans.). Tampere: Vastapaino. Beerkens, H. J. J. G. (2004). Global opportunities and institutional embeddedness. Higher education consortia in Europe and Southeast Asia. Enschede, Netherlands: Cheps. Brunila, A. (2004). Osaava, avautuva ja uudistuva Suomi [Finland in the world economy]. Valtioneuvoston kanslian julkaisuja 19/2004. Helsinki, Finland: Edita.

118  •  Jussi Välimaa Held, D., McGrew, A., Goldblatt, D., & Perraton, J. (1999). Global transformations. Politics, economics and culture. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Hölttä, S. (2010). Finland. In D. D. Dill & F. A. van Vught (Eds.), National innovation and the academic research enterprise. Public policy in global perspective. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Kankaala, K., Kaukonen, E., Kutinlahti, P., Nieminen, M., Lemola, T., & Välimaa, J. (2004). Yliopistojen kolmas tehtävä? [The third mission of universities?]. Sitra Publications 264. Helsinki, Finland: Edita. Keinonen, J., Lehto, V.-P., Heinämaa, S., et al. (2009, February 4, p. C1). Yliopistouudistuksessa on otettava aikalisä [University reform needs to be stopped]. Helsingin Sanomat. Klinge, M. (1992). Intellectual tradition in Finland. In N. Kauppi & P. Sulkunen (Eds.), Vanguards of modernity. Jyväskylä, Finland: University of Jyväskylä. Unit for Contemporary Culture 32, 33–42. Kolbe, L. (2009, March 19). Yliopistolakiin ladatut odotukset epärealistisia [Unrealistic expectations loaded in the Universities Act]. Helsingin Sanomat. KOTA, national database for higher education. See http://www.csc.fi/kota Liiten, M. (2009, February 19, p. A12). Yliopistolain vastustajat havahtuivat vasta valmistelun loppusuoralla [Resisters of the Universities Act woke up too late]. Helsingin Sanomat. Ministry of Education (2008). Tavoitteena alueellisesti ja aloittain vaikuttava ja laadukas korkeakouluverkko [The aim is to create a higher education system which is regionally and professionally efficient and of high quality]. Memo dated February 15, 2008. Nyman, J. (2009, May 4, p. C6). Uusi laki on vastaus yliopistojen tarpeisiin [The new act responds to universities’ needs]. Helsingin Sanomat. Peltokoski, J., & Kaitila, J. (2009, March 25, p. 4). Asiaa yliopistokeskusteluun [Facts for the university debate]. Keskisuomalainen. Rantanen, J. (2004). Yliopistojen ja Ammattikorkeakoulujen tutkimuksen rakenneselvitys [Report on the structures of universities and polytechnics]. Opetusministeriön työryhmämuistioita ja selvityksiä, 36. Rashdall, H. (1969/1936). The universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, edited by F. M. Powicke & A. B. Emden. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Thaden, E. C. (1984). Russia’s western borderlands, 1710–1870. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Universities Act (Yliopistolaki 558/2009) at http://www.finlex.fi/fi/laki/ kokoelma/2009/?_offset=6 Ursin, J., Aittola, H., Henderson, C., & Välimaa, J. (2010). Is education getting lost in university mergers? Tertiary Education and Management, 16 (4), 327–340. Vabo, A. (2002). Mytedannelser i endringsprosesser i akademiske institusjoner. (Unprinted academic dissertation, University of Bergen). Vahasalo, R. (2009, March 19, p. 4). Parvikko antoi väärän kuvan [Misleading image on the Universities Act]. Keskisuomalainen. Välimaa, J. (1994). A trying game: Experiments and reforms in Finnish higher education. European Journal of Education, 29 (2), 149–163. Välimaa, J. (1996). Private and public intellectuals in Finland. In W. G. Tierney & K. Kempner (Eds.), The social role of higher education: Comparative perspectives (pp. 185–207). New York: Garland Press.

The Corporatization of National Universities in Finland  •  119 Välimaa, J. (2000). A historical introduction to Finnish higher education. In J. Välimaa (Ed.), Finnish higher education in transition. Perspectives on massification and globalisation (pp. 13–54). Jyväskylä, Finland: Institute for Educational Research. Välimaa, J. (2005). Globalization in the concept of Nordic higher education. In A. Arimoto, F. Huang, & K. Yokoyama (Eds.), Globalization and higher education (pp. 93–114). Hiroshima, Japan: RIHE. International Publication Series No. 9. Välimaa, J. (2011). Uusi yliopistolaki ja kansallisen yliopistolaitoksen yhtiöittäminen [New Universities Act and the corporatization of national universities], (pp. 43–93). In J. Ursin & J. Lasonen (Eds.), Koulutus yhteiskunnan muutoksissa: jatkuvuuksia ja katkoksia [Education in the changes of a society: continuities and discontinuities]. Jyväskylä, Finland: Finnish Educational Research Association, Kasvatusalan tutkimuksia 53. Välimaa, J., & Jalkanen, H. (2000). Strategic flow and Finnish universities. In J. Välimaa (Ed.), Finnish higher education in transition. Perspectives on massification and globalisation (pp. 185–202). Jyväskylä, Finland: Institute for Educational Research. Välimaa, J., & Neuvonen-Rauhala, M.-L. (2008). Polytechnics in Finnish higher education. In J. S. Taylor, J. B. Ferreira, M. L. Machado, & R. Santiago (Eds.), Nonuniversity higher education in Europe (pp. 77–98). New York: Springer. Väyrynen, R. (1999). Globalisation and societal policy in Finland. Summary of the research programme Globalisation, welfare and employment. Finnish National Fund for Research and Development. Virkkunen, H. (2009, February 26, p. 4). Yliopistojen autonomia vahvistuu [The autonomy of the universities will strengthen]. Keskisuomalainen. Wittrock, B. (1993). The modern university: The three transformations. In S. Rothblatt & B. Wittrock (Eds.), The European and American university since 1800 (pp. 303–362). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

8

Negotiating Race and Gender Identity in the Knowledge Age The Case of South African Universities

Reitumetse Obakeng Mabokela

Introduction Globalization has played a significant role in redefining the role and identity of higher education institutions across the world, and universities in developing nations are no exception. Education policies in many developing countries have historically favored and funded the development of basic education; however, there has been a gradual shift in national policies toward investing in the higher education sector. This trend is also evident in the funding priorities expressed by major external donor agencies, such as the United States Agency for International Development. Using South Africa as a case study, this chapter examines how higher education institutions in this country have negotiated the tension between the national objective to create equitable and accessible universities on the one hand while seeking to be active players and leaders in the knowledge era on the other. Taking into consideration the significant role racial politics has played historically and even in the postapartheid era in this country, this chapter specifically explores how the intersection of race and gender has impacted South African universities’ efforts to create an equitable and accessible system of higher education that will launch this country as a critical player in the global academic arena. It is critical to understand developments in South African higher education over the past decade and a half within a broad context that takes into account 121

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global influences. To ground the argument presented, this chapter begins with an overview of the global status of women in higher education by drawing insights from both developed and developing countries. A critical assessment of the role of gender in higher education suggests remarkably similar trends among women scholars and administrators, regardless of geographical and cultural specificities. It is thus critical to understand where South African women academics fit within this landscape. To further explore the public-good question as exemplified by vigorous debates about access and equity within higher education in South Africa, the second part of this chapter examines the centrality of cultural identity in the postsecondary education sector in this country. Given the history of South Africa, it is challenging to effectively implement a public system of higher education without interrogating and seeking to redress injustices created by the apartheid legacy. To this end, race and gender are still part of the identity of higher education institutions and their constituents. The final part of this chapter highlights continuing challenges that impact academic and professional experiences of African (or Black) women who, despite the passage of various gender policies, continue to be systemically marginalized. I do not imply that African (or Black) women academics are victims but rather challenge institutionalized practices within the higher education sector that compromise the public-good ideals of equity and access for historically disenfranchised groups with the South African higher education sector.

Global Patterns of Gender Disparities in Higher Education What do gender and race have to do with the role of universities as key players in realizing the national development goals of South Africa or their aspirations to contribute to knowledge production, certainly on the African continent but more broadly in the international arena? More important, what do race and gender have to do with the national goal of creating higher education institutions that embrace the ideal that universities must serve a public good? An examination of literature on women in higher education suggests that the marginalization of women scholars and administrators, with varying degrees of success and disparities, is a global phenomenon. In country after country, women hold fewer than 50% of academic and administrative posts in higher education institutions. They tend to be overrepresented in lower-level academic and middle-management positions, and their participation relative to men decreases at successively higher levels. Representation varies between about 10% and 20% at the middle-management level and from 0% to 10% at the senior-management level. Representation in the committee system follows a similar pattern, with

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women more likely to be members of departmental and faculty committees than of governing boards or councils. A consequence of this pattern of decreasing representation at successively higher levels is that senior women frequently find themselves isolated in hierarchies that are predominantly male (Dines, 1993). Brooks’ (1997) research on academic women in the United Kingdom and New Zealand reveals disturbing patterns of exclusion for female students, faculty, and administrators. Although patterns of representation of female students in the United Kingdom have shifted from complete exclusion at the turn of the twentieth century to the point where they represented 50% of the student population in the 1990s, female scholars and administrators continue to be marginalized. That is, the increase in the student population has not translated into a significant change in the representation of female faculty and administrators, even in departments wherein female students have been heavily recruited. Brooks (1997) notes that in 1991, female faculty comprised 4.7% of full professors, 10.3% of senior lecturers and readers, and 23.1% of lecturers. Further, a disproportionately high percentage of women are employed as contract workers (non-tenure track) and occupy the lowest academic ranks as lecturers, junior lecturers, or tutors (Brooks, 1997). Similar patterns of inequity are prevalent in institutions of higher education in other countries, including Canada (Acker & Feuerverger, 1997) and the United States (Acker & Feuerverger, 1997; Glazer-Raymo, 2001; Bradley, 2000). Though the sociocultural conditions and political particularities in these countries differ significantly from one another, the conditions of female academics are remarkably similar. In comparison with their Western counterparts, academic women in developing countries suffer more in their professional progression from insufficient access to higher education. For example, in developed countries, women comprise 52% of tertiary students, whereas such access ranges from 33% in China to 49% in Latin America and the Caribbean (Singh, 2002). India boasts one of the largest higher education systems in the world; even though the number of women’s colleges has increased substantially from 780 colleges in 1986–1987 to 1,195 in 1996–1997, women’s enrollment accounts for only 34% of the total enrollment. As further noted by Chitnis (1993), the representation of Indian women scholars is extremely small and highly skewed in terms of disciplines and their geographical location. Similar patterns of marginalization of women scholars have been observed in South Africa, where race has also exacerbated their situation. In this country, Blacks and women tend to be relegated to the lower ranks, with a disproportionate number in service as opposed to academic and administrative positions. A study conducted by Mabokela (2000) demonstrated that in a 13-year period between 1983 and 1995, the proportion of women in senior administrative positions at

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one prestigious university increased very slightly from 14.55% in 1983 to 15.35%. At another university, there was one woman administrator on the staff in 1983 as compared to 57 male colleagues; 13 years later in 1995, there were 5 women and 92 men (Mabokela, 2000) administrators. It is even harder for women in some Asian countries to reach top management positions in higher education institutions owing to the deeply ingrained feudal social and cultural prejudice against women. Drawing on the strategies adopted in Western countries, such as legislative and infrastructure support, financial and social measures to increase women’s enrollment in postgraduate education, training programs and courses, establishment of networks, and mentoring (Chitnis, 1993; Hammound, 1993; Omar, 1993; Setiadarma, 1993; Singh, 2002), some scholars advocate similar approaches in Asian countries. However, Luke (2002) contends that the Western emphasis on individualism and goal-directed self-promotion for women’s career mobility may not necessarily apply in the cultural contexts of Asian countries and developing countries generally. An examination of Arab states is an example wherein Islamic law governs legal codes of personal status. Even with advances in recent decades, the status of women in this region of the world is still inferior to that of men. Women accounted for only between 10% and 15% of the total labor force, recorded as among the lowest in the world. Data from Arab states also showed that women are underrepresented in both academic and administrative posts at higher education institutions, particularly in top administrative positions. Hammoud (1993) reported that in the institutions of his study, women constituted 15.5% of the total academic staff, 16.7% of the total administrative directors, 16% of the total chairpersons of academic departments, and 5% of the total numbers of deans of colleges, with toplevel positions (president, vice president, and board of trustees members) being almost 100% male. Of the factors impeding women’s access to higher education management in Arab states, traditional attitudes and stereotypes in these areas are most noteworthy. Women are primarily deemed as wife and mother, physiologically and intellectually inferior to men, naturally emotional and lacking in self-discipline, and thus not fit for leadership and decision-making positions (Hammoud, 1993). The most irrevocable prejudice comes from women themselves, as surveys in Arab states showed female respondents believed women should be confined to traditional professions if they chose to work, and they should discontinue work if it conflicted with family duties (as cited in Hammoud, 1993). As the preceding discussion indicates, there are common threads that transcend professional experiences of women scholars and administrators, regardless of their social, political, and cultural context. These trends present a disturbing global pattern of continuing disparities and institutionalized practices of inequity, which continue to place women scholars and

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administrators on the margins. Emerging from this presentation of global trends, the ensuing discussion illuminates the status of women scholars within the South African higher education context. In a country where the then-minister of education (now minister of higher education) espoused a vision of postsecondary education institutions as centers of transformation to create equitable and accessible institutions, particularly for historically marginalized groups, how have universities fared in this regard?

Sociopolitical Context of South African Higher Education South African universities, especially the historically White (advantaged) universities (HWUs), have made noteworthy steps since 1994 to increase the representation of Black students within the higher education sector. The same cannot be said, however, about faculty members (see Mabokela, 2007). The 1996 National Commission on Higher Education (NCHE) report revealed that the distribution of women among faculty and administrators does not reflect the demographic profile of the larger society. Based on the 2001 population census, the total population of South Africa is 44.8 million, of which 79.4% are African, 8.8% Colored, 1.1% Indian/Asian, and 9.3% White. According to the census in 2001, women comprised 52% of the total population, whereas men constituted 48% (Statistics South Africa, 2001). The proportion of black faculty and administrators employed at universities increased from 13% to 20% between 1993 and 1998 and, at the technikons, from 12% to 29% (Cloete et al., 2006). Data from the Department of Education indicate that in 2001, Blacks comprised 68% of the teaching and research staff, 85% of the administrative staff, and 100% of the service staff at historically Black universities (HBUs). At the historically White universities, Blacks comprised 30% of the teaching and research staff, 49% of the administrative staff, and 98% of the service staff. When faculty statistics at HWUs are further disaggregated, Blacks comprise 5% of the academic staff at historically White Afrikaans universities and 21% at historically White English universities (Cloete, Pillay, Badat, & Moja, 2004). Despite these modest increases, the professorial and administrative ranks are still polarized along racial and gender lines, with more prestigious positions occupied predominantly by White males. Blacks and women tend to be relegated to the lower ranks, with a disproportionate number in service as opposed to academic and administrative positions. Gender inequities are still pervasive in the allocation of key administrative positions. According to statistics from the department of education, in 2001 women comprised 38% of the teaching and research staff at HBUs, 51% of the administrative staff, and 45% of the service staff. At the HWUs, women comprised 37% of the teaching and research staff, 63% of the administrative staff, and 33% of the service staff (Department of Education, 2001). More

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disturbing is the continued absence of Blacks and women scholars in the knowledge production arena. Research and publishing are still dominated by scholars at HWUs, the majority of whom are White. Cloete et al. (2004) note that between 1990 and 1998, the research output of Black academics increased slightly from 1% to 3% and, in 2000, the total research output for all the historically Black technikons was 25 scholarly publications. The amount for the HBUs was 558, and the combined output of the two top HWUs was 1,598. This disturbing trend was evident in the knowledge production arena where 65% of research publications and 61% of research and development funding allocations to higher education were concentrated in the five HWUs. The ten HBUs combined produced about 10% of the research publications.

Why Are We Still Talking About Race and Gender in the Postapartheid Global Era? Almost a decade and a half since the end of apartheid in South Africa, why are we still talking about racial and gender disparities in education in this country? There is no question that the South African higher education system has experienced major changes since 1994 as evidenced by, among other indicators, the consolidation of the 36 former institutions of higher education from 21 universities and 15 technikons to 21 universities, primarily through a process of mergers. These government-mandated mergers, flawed as some of them have been, were informed by a very explicit assumption that they would create greater equity and access through the creation of new organizational structures (Kotecha & Harman, 2001). The underlying vision was clearly to create institutions that would benefit the public good. In addition to the social, political, and economic factors that might have driven these merger processes, another key assumption was that this process would result in a significantly different system of higher education that would enable South African universities to become global competitors. Questions that are sometimes raised in South African higher education circles are, “Why are we still discussing the legacy of apartheid when the majority of students enrolled across the majority of South Africa’s universities are Black?” “Have we not increased access to higher education of the historically disenfranchised groups in South Africa?” Though it is indeed true that the demographic profile of university students has changed significantly since 1994 to reflect a higher representation of Black and disadvantaged students, there are lingering questions about the quality of the academic and cultural experiences of these students and whether they receive preparation that will enable them to be successful global players. Another question asked less often is, “What are the retention and graduation rates for the majority of the students?” Macgregor (2007)

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demonstrates alarmingly high drop-out rates of 40% among first-year university students, the majority of whom are Black. Another question that remains unanswered is, “Why do Black faculty and administrators remain critically underrepresented in the higher education sector, especially at the advantaged (formerly White) universities?” And further, “Why do Black and women faculty continue to be relegated to the lower ranks of the academic ladder?” These are questions about the “public-good” role of universities that require further inquiry. Scholarship from countries with diverse student demographics, including the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States and, increasingly, Australia, demonstrate benefits that students—both racial-ethnic minority and majority students—derive from the presence of and interactions with diverse faculty members in their academic experiences. Diversity presents an enriched intellectual environment. Women and minority faculty often bring different perspectives on their various books and other sources they assign in their course and pedagogical practices they may employ. Often, it is erroneously assumed that students of color are the only beneficiaries of opportunities that result from the presence of diverse faculty. Though the majority of (White) students may not necessarily value or see the immediate benefits of exposure to varied academic experiences resulting from the presence of minority faculty, these may become evident when they join the workforce where they will encounter co-workers from diverse backgrounds. Black women faculty and other minority scholars serve as positive role models. As Williams (2001) notes, the continued underrepresentation of African American women scholars across many U.S. campuses may lead to the misleading perception that women of African descent are not qualified to be faculty, administrators, or graduates students. That is, the perception of their presence on many university campuses is reduced to that of affirmative action cases rather than qualified intelligent individuals who can contribute constructively to intellectual exchanges on campus. Mabokela’s (2000) study revealed similar sentiments and attitudes toward Black and women academics in South Africa. It is important for students to see successful Black and women academics as evidence that they also can succeed. Some scholars contend that universities have what might be characterized as a “chilly climate” (Acker, 1994; Brooks, 1997) for women scholars—that is, an environment that is not always supportive to the intellectual pursuits of women of color. There is a further tendency to “pigeon-hole” (Madsen & Mabokela, 2000) the professional contributions of women and Black scholars where they are valued only for their “Blackness,” thus undermining their expertise and restricting their participation in higher education to a very narrowly defined area. As Potgieter and Moleko (2004) explain,

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What would often happen with (graduate) students is that they would come in and want to study something African … the head of the department would send them directly to me, even if I were not teaching a course in that area. If it was anything African or Black anything, he would send them to me. I am an expert in issues of gender but only students who were Black and interested in gender would be sent to me. If they were White, the White feminists recruited them. And I might also add, White feminists would also take a Black student if she showed exceptional ability because they could show her off on the conference circuit and be seen to be her mentor. (p. 83) Various scholars (Acker & Feuerverger, 1997; Brooks, 1997; Cox, 1994; Kanter, 1977; Turner & Myers, 2000) have identified the mentoring as a critical component of success for individuals who occupy minority status within a given organization—that is, be they women in a male-dominated profession or racial-ethnic minorities in predominantly White organizations. Given the current (under)-representation of African (or Black) women in senior academic and administrative ranks within the South African higher education sector, especially at the top five research universities, opportunities for professional mentorship are limited. As Cox (1994) notes, mentorship is critical for professional and academic advancement of the protégé. What is disconcerting is that women are less likely to participate in mentoring relationships, and African (or Black) women in particular are less likely than their White counterparts and men to participate in these relationships. Woods’s (2001) study raised alarming accounts of African American women doctoral students at a prestigious research university who could potentially become future faculty members. These women experienced the compounded impact of their race and gender by being marginalized by both White faculty and Black male faculty. As a participant in Woods’s study (2001) explains, We don’t even need to discuss White men and White women. For the most part they end up in their networks … [W]omen of color are stuck here, we can’t relate to the brothers (African American men) … Most of them work with the Black male professors. And the White women don’t get it, they think “oh, we are all women.” No, we are all women biologically, but we don’t have the same set of issues. There is a group of us in the social sciences, with no faculty like us. (p111) Because of the dearth of Black women faculty beyond the junior ranks on South African campuses, the few available frequently find themselves assuming the roles of mother, confidante, counselor, friend, or professional coach to students from across campus; this is in addition to their professional responsibilities for research, teaching, and service.

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The Continuing Significance of Gendered Discrimination The South African system of higher education presents an intriguing case wherein the pursuit of higher education for the public good has been pivotal to transformation efforts in the postsecondary education sector. Central to these efforts is the objective to create an accessible, equitable system of higher education. The government decision to merge some of the universities and technikons in this country, contested as the process has been, aimed to, among other things, redistribute intellectual and material resources to historically disadvantaged universities, all of which also primarily serve African (or Black) students. In the postapartheid era, race continues to be an integral part of the higher education landscape. Of equal significance is the issue of gender. Though gender rights are enshrined in the constitution of South Africa and other government legislation, implementation has been unenthusiastic, resulting in the persistent marginalization of women despite the fact that they represent a slight majority in university enrollments and in the population in general. The persistent impact of race and gender on the professional experiences of South African women academics becomes disquieting when placed within the global discourse of gender discrimination. The status of African (or Black) women within the academy highlights the global nature of gender inequities, as also reflected in studies conducted in other countries, including Mabokela and Magubane (2004) in South Africa; Luke (2002) in South East Asia; Brooks (2003) in New Zealand and the United Kingdom; Blackmore (2000) in Australia; or Stromquist (1995) in Latin America. As noted in these other countries, South African women continue to experience systemic forms of discrimination that manifest in a variety of ways ranging from isolation, tokenism, and pressures to prove their worth and expertise. What is even more disconcerting is that even after a decade and a half of legislative and policy interventions, racial and gender disparities persist. How do South African universities create institutional cultures that support the professional lives of Black women academics and create spaces wherein these scholars can become optimal contributors in the knowledge production process? Tokenism, Isolation, and the Pressure to Prove Tokenism masks racism and sexism by admitting a small number of previously excluded individuals to an institution. At the same time a system of tokenism maintains barriers of entry to others. (Greene, 1997, p. 89) Countries such as the United Sates, which have a much longer history of interventions, policies, and legislation implemented to dismantle exclusionary practices, continue to experience significant challenges with

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the underrepresentation of women and racial-ethnic minorities in the faculty and administrative ranks. Even in academic disciplines such as education and the other social sciences, which have historically graduated a slightly higher proportion of Blacks and women, Gregory (1995) notes that these scholars tend to be relegated to lower rank, non-tenure-track positions in the 2-year college sector. Though the South African journey of academic transformation is developing, trends observed in other countries should raise concerns about complacency within the South African professoriate. Kanter (1977) contends that women, whom she identifies as “tokens” in predominantly male organizations (or academic disciplines), are placed under constant psychological pressure, scrutiny from colleagues, and isolation because of their small representation. Though Black women do not characterize themselves as “tokens,” they (we) acknowledge that their chronic underrepresentation places them in the spotlight where it is impossible for these individuals to remain anonymous and have any privacy, when all of their professional actions are public. This professional isolation may manifest in terms of the value placed on the research and intellectual contributions that Black scholars make to a given department, institution, or academic discipline. Woods (2001) notes that many Black women scholars tend to select topics of scholarly inquiry that are informed by their racialized and gendered experience. She asserts that such research is often met with criticism for not being objective, thus raising broader questions about the process of and players in knowledge production. Potgieter and Moleko (2004) illuminate this professional isolation in their assertion that knowledge production within the academy is a “Eurocentric, masculinist process” (p. 86) that devalues intellectual contributions of Blacks and women in particular. The fact that women and Black scholars (as the only or one of very few) often do not have colleagues in their departments who share their research interests means that they have limited opportunities for collaboration in research projects and grant activities within their departments. This is particularly critical for new scholars who would benefit immensely not only from the intellectual exchange that emerges from collaborative work but from the opportunity to engage their senior colleagues who could potentially serve as mentors. Professional relationships that stem from these collaborative activities not only provide networking opportunities but may become especially critical in the tenure and review process whereby senior colleagues could serve as cultural translators to assist new scholars to unravel the subtle nuances of their department. By being isolated, Black women scholars miss these critical opportunities. By being the only or one of very few, Black scholars rarely have opportunities for meaningful intellectual dialogue and exchanges that can contribute constructively to their research.

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Though colleagues may view the research of some of these scholars as “interesting” or “different” (Jarmon, 2001), this does not necessarily translate into active interest to understand or engage this work. Therefore, not only does marginalization continue but, more critically, negative evaluations may result from colleagues who may not necessarily understand the scholarship of Black scholars. This isolation can be further exacerbated by the tendency of some colleagues to view successful Black women scholars as “special” or “different” rather than as intelligent scholars who can make significant scholarly contributions. Implicit in this statement is the flawed but deeply ingrained perception that Black scholars are intellectually inferior (Woods, 2001) and therefore those who succeed are the anomaly. This perspective absolves the institution from any responsibility it may have or role it may play in creating institutional conditions that impede professional accomplishments of Black faculty and administrators. Potgieter and Moleko (2004) argue that another way in which tokenism manifests is by acknowledging the professional accomplishments of individual women while maintaining the perception that the group is below standard. With statements such as “You are so different; how have you managed to kick all the cultural socialization? … I even at times forget that you are Black” (Potgieter & Moleko, 2004, p. 88), there is an implicit attitude that to be successful as academics, Blacks have to be different from their peer group, and this difference means embracing more Eurocentric ways of knowing and doing. The preceding example highlights a phenomenon Kanter (1977) identifies as symbolic consequence, whereby members of a minority group experience pressure to become representatives of their race and gender in response to the stereotypical beliefs of their majority peers and the subsequent treatment that follows from that stereotyped portrayal. Owing to the visibility of underrepresented Black women in the academy, majority faculty members may project their stereotypical views onto them and, when they fail to respond in the expected way, they may be dismissed as untrue representatives of their race. Collins (2000) asserts that those Black women who accept these stereotypical projections about the roles and contributions of Black scholars are “likely to be rewarded by their institutions, but often at significant personal costs; those challenging them run the risk of being ostracized.” Therefore, there is an expectation that the Black faculty and administrators will adjust themselves to the organization (university) but with little acknowledgment that the presence of African Americans will also impact the institution. As Maphai (1989), explains, Most (organizations) operate from the assumption that Blacks are defective. Often no question is raised regarding the institution. Black(s) are provided with a mentor(s) who will assist (them) to adjust to the

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company. There is no remedial course for the company to adjust to Blacks. (p. 18) Emerging from the pervasive tendency to define the professional accomplishments of academics in terms of their “Blackness” rather than their disciplinary expertise, Black scholars are faced with the additional burden of having to prove their intellectual worth to their colleagues and, in some cases, their students as well. Many Black South African academics experience the additional burden of establishing themselves as qualified experts to overshadow their token status and the pervasive perception that they are affirmative-action hires. The pressure to constantly prove their expertise also manifests in interactions that Black faculty have with students. Potgieter and Moleko (2004) provide accounts wherein Black faculty are reprimanded for failure to respond to the needs of their students, especially their White students. In this case, the faculty is constructed as the problem, not the students or the culture of the university. As they explain, If white students complained about a grade or a reading they could not find in the library, I was called to the head of department’s office and given a dressing down. (I was told) that students are our clients and as an experienced lecturer I needed to be aware of this. (p. 85) Because of the historical racial relationship between Blacks and Whites in South Africa and in other countries (for example, the United States) wherein race relations have been particularly turbulent, women are sometimes presented in the caretaker, mother role. Hooks (1994) contends that this caretaker role manifests in relationships and expectations that women have with colleagues and students on their university campuses. As she explains, Racist and sexist assumptions that Black women are somehow innately more capable of caring for others continue to permeate cultural thinking about Black female roles. As a consequence, Black women in all walks of life, from corporate professionals and university professors to service workers, complain that colleagues, co-workers, and supervisors, etc., ask them to assume multi-purpose caretaker roles … to be that all-nurturing breast—to be the mammy. (p. 154) The challenge is that the service responsibilities that come with this mothering role are often not acknowledged in the reward structures of the university. Therefore, these become extra responsibilities in addition to their teaching, research, and service obligations. These additional responsibilities certainly do not contribute to the scholarly profile of Black women scholars as serious academics who can compete in the global arena.

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Retention is another manifestation of professional isolation many Black women academics experience. As Cose (1993) and Maphai (1989) have observed, the acculturation of new employees into an organization seems to be a one-way process whereby new employees are expected to adjust themselves to the norms and values of their organization. There is little acknowledgment that the new entrants may in turn impact the culture of the organization. There are various issues that may compromise the ability of an institution to retain its Black academics. These include (1) mentoring or the lack thereof for early-career faculty; (2) heavy workloads wherein the few Black faculty on campus assume an inordinate share of service and (diversity) committee activities that are often not rewarded in the tenure and promotion process; (3) institutional failure to capitalize on the expertise of Black scholars, pigeonholing them into Black experts; (4) prevalence of a research culture that marginalizes and devalues multicultural and interdisciplinary inquiry; and (5) limited opportunities to work with a diverse student body. These and other factors contribute to institutional cultures that seem inhospitable to the professional interests of Black scholars. The preceding discussion highlights some of the persistent challenges that continue to affect the professional lives of Black women scholars. The discussion clearly demonstrates that though there are pockets of success for Black academics or sectors within higher education wherein Blacks have fared well, there are continuing race and gender disparities. Critically, there are institutional barriers that fail to take full advantage of the expertise and contributions that Black women scholars could make. A developing country such as South Africa cannot afford to marginalize 50% of its productive population by adhering to ill-informed practices. Amid current increasing pressure to eliminate affirmative action programs, institutions of higher education, many of which have not effectively implemented existing policies and procedures, will need to demonstrate concerted commitment to create academic environments that are supportive to professional pursuits of women and scholars of African descent. Of critical importance within the South African context is the need to constantly re-evaluate the degree to which public universities in this country have fulfilled their mandate to serve the public good and realize the broader national objective to be equitable and accessible institutions.

Looking Ahead: Institutional Initiatives and Responses This chapter started by exploring the global status of women in higher education to contextualize the place of South African women academics in gender discourse. In examining possible institutional responses to the persistent marginalization of women academics, critical lessons can be gleaned from other countries wherein legislative interventions have been

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implemented to address discrimination in the postsecondary sector. As observed in the United States, the passage of antidiscrimination legislations does not necessarily imply their effective implementation. Discriminatory practices, perhaps more subtle in their manifestation, still negatively impact the professional experiences of women and Black scholars in the academy. When exploring institutional-level responses implemented to eliminate the continued marginalization of scholars of color, various researchers (Harvey, 2004; Moody, 2004; Turner, 2002) indicate that to recruit and retain Black academics, it is critical to have institutional commitment to diversity at the highest levels—that is, from the president, to the provost, to deans, to departmental chairs, to the faculty. This commitment must be supported with concrete programs to accomplish the desired diversity outcomes. Therefore, creating an institutional culture that values diversity and embraces it as a salient aspect of how business is done within a given institution is a critical step for attracting scholars of African descent. Many South African universities have asserted that they cannot find qualified Blacks (Mabokela, 2000). The question that follows is “Where did they look?” What strategies do universities employ to recruit a diverse pool of applicants? As the South African academic labor force continues to age and retire, it will be especially critical to build a cadre of academics to fill these vacancies. Given the racial composition of the South Africa wherein Blacks constitute more than 80% of the population, fulfilling the national equity and access mandate will become more critical. The commitment of any university to maintain a diverse academic staff is reflected in its ability to retain Black and female faculty and administrators employed. Some universities have employed cluster hiring (Harvey, 2004; Moody, 2004; Turner, 2002), which focuses on hiring a group or cohort of academics across different disciplines but with expertise around a similar thematic area and may alleviate the isolation and alienation of being the only or one of very few within a given department. Mentoring is another critical component in the retention process. As noted in preceding discussions, women and racial-ethnic minorities are less likely to participate in informal mentoring activities. Therefore, the institution could implement a formal mentoring process that would be particularly critical in the pretenure process. Critically, tenured faculty who are most likely to serve as mentors require cross-gender and cross-cultural training to support their efforts to become effective participants in the mentoring relationship. One of the challenges that Black and female academics frequently report is being overloaded with additional service and committee responsibilities to ensure diverse representation. Further, these academics often assume additional advising roles (formally and informally) for Black students, even those not based in their departments. Though these activities are important, they

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are not rewarded in ways that convey their value in institutional incentive structures—and definitely not in the global arena. Race and gender are still part of the baggage that impacts the professional lives of many African (or Black) women scholars in South Africa. With the increasing impact of external forces, institutions of higher education in this country cannot afford to continue to marginalize women and hope to remain effective players in the global academic arena. More important, the national objective to create universities that are responsive to equity and access demands is fundamental to the direction of change in the postsecondary sector.

References Acker, S. (1994). Gendered education. Sociological reflections on women, teaching and feminism. Buckingham, England: Open University Press. Acker, S., & Feuerverger, G. (1997). Enough is never enough: Women’s work in academe. In C. Marshall (Ed.), Feminist critical policy analysis: A perspective from post-secondary education (pp.122–140). London: Falmer. Blackmore, J. (2000). “Hanging on the edge”: An Australian case study of women, universities, and gender. In N. Stromquist & K. Monkman (Eds.), Globalization and education: Integration and contestation across cultures (pp. 333–352). Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers. Bradley, K (2000). The incorporation of women into higher education: Paradoxical outcomes? Sociology of Education, 73, pp. 1–18. Brooks, A. (1997). Academic women. Bristol, England: Society for Research Into Higher Education and Open University Press. Chitnis, S. (1993). The place of women in the management of higher education in India. In E. Dines, (Ed.), Women in higher education management (pp. 81– 103). Paris: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)/Commonwealth Secretariat. Cloete, N., Pillay, P., Badat., S., & Moja, T. (2004). Higher education in Africa. National policy and a regional response in South African higher education. Oxford: James Curry. Cloete, N., Maasen, P., Fehnel, R., Moja, T., Gibbon, T., & Perold, H. (Eds). (2006). Transformation in higher education: Global pressures and local realities. Dordrecht, Netherlands. Collins, P. H. (2000). Towards an Afrocentric feminist epistemology. In P. Kivisto (Ed.), Social theory: roots and branches (pp. 329–339). Los Angeles: Roxbury Publishing. Cose, E. (1993). The rage of a privileged class. New York: Harper Perennial. Cox, T. H. (1994). Cultural diversity in organizations: Theory, research, and practice. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers. Department of Education. (2001). The restructuring of the higher education system in South Africa: Report of the National Working Group to the Minister of Education. Pretoria, South Africa: Author. Dines, E. (1993). Overview. In E. Dines (Ed.), Women in higher education management (pp. 11–29). Paris: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)/Commonwealth Secretariat.

136  •  Reitumetse Obakeng Mabokela Glazer-Raymo, J. (2001). Shattering the myths: Women in academe. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Greene, L. S. (1997). Tokens, role models and pedagogical politics: Lamentation of an African American law professor. In A. K. Wing (Ed.), Critical race feminism (pp. 88–95). New York: New York University Press. Gregory, S. (1995). Black women in the academy: Their secrets to success and achievement. New York: University Press of America. Hammoud, R. S. (1993). Bahrain: The role of women in higher education management. In E. Dines (Ed.),Women in higher education management (pp. 31–51). Paris: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)/Commonwealth Secretariat. Harvey, W. B. (2004). Deans as diversity leaders: Modifying attitudes by taking bold actions-learning lessons and changing cultures. In F. W. Hale, Jr. (Ed.), What makes racial diversity work in higher education: Academic leaders provide successful policies strategies (pp. 292–306). Sterling: Stylus Publishing. Hooks, B. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. New York: Routledge. Jarmon, B (2001). Unwritten rules of the game. In R. O. Mabokela & A. L. Green (Eds). Sisters of the academy: Emergent black Women scholars in higher education. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing. Kanter, R. M. (1977). Some effects of proportions on group life: Skewed sex ratios and responses to token women. American Journal of Sociology, 82 (5), 965–990. Kotecha, P., & Harman, G. (2001). Exploring institutional collaboration and mergers in higher education. Pretoria, South Africa: SAUVCA. Luke, C. (2002). Globalization and women in Southeast Asian higher education management. Retrieved on February 10, 2003, from http://www.tcrecord.org/ Content.asp?ContentID=10843 Mabokela, R. O. (2000). We cannot find qualified Blacks: Faculty diversification programs at South African universities. Comparative Education, 36 (1), 95–112. Mabokela, R. O. (Ed). (2007). Soaring beyond boundaries: Women breaking barriers in traditional societies. Rotterdam, Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Mabokela, R. O., & Magubane, Z. (2004). Hear our voices! Race, gender and the status of Black South African women in the academy. Pretoria, South Africa: University of South Africa (UNISA) Press. Macgregor, K. (2007). South Africa: Student drop-out rates alarming. University World News, 3. Retrieved on June 15, 2010, from http://www.universityworldnews.com/ article.php?story=20071025102245380 Madsen J. A., & Mabokela, R. O. (2000). Organizational culture and its impact on African American teachers. American Educational Research Journal 24 (2), 849– 876. Maphai, V. T. (1989). Affirmative action in South Africa: A genuine option. Social Dynamics, 15, 1–24. Moody, J. (2004). Faculty diversity: Problems and solutions. New York: Routledge Falmer. Omar, A. H. (1993). Women managers in higher education in Malaysia. In E. Dines (Ed.), Women in higher education management (pp. 121–133). Paris: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)/ Commonwealth Secretariat.

Negotiating Race and Gender Identity in the Knowledge Age  •  137 Potgieter, C., & Moleko, A. S. (2004). Stand out, stand up, move out: Experiences of Black South African women at historically White universities. In R.O. Mabokela & Z. Magubane (Eds.), Hear our voices! Race, gender and the status of Black South African women in the academy (pp. 80–95). Pretoria: University of South Africa (UNISA) Press. Setiadarma, M. (1993). Indonesian women in higher education management. In E. Dines (Ed.), Women in higher education management (pp. 105–119). Paris: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)/ Commonwealth Secretariat. Singh, J. K. S. (Ed.). (2002). Women and management in higher education: A good practice handbook. Paris: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Statistics South Africa. (2001). Census 2001. Retrieved on October 15, 2010., from http://www.statssa.gov.za/census01/html/default.asp Stromquist, N. (1995). Gender dimensions in education in Latin America. Washington, DC: Organization of American States. Turner, C. S. V. (2002). Diversifying the faculty: A guidebook for search committees. Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities. Turner, C. S. V., & Myers, S. L. (2000). Faculty of color in academe: Bittersweet success. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Williams, L. D. (2001). Coming to terms with being a young, Black academic in U.S. higher education. In R. O. Mabokela & A. L. Green (Eds.), Sisters of the academy: Emergent Black women scholars in higher education (pp. 92–104). Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing. Woods, R. L. (2001). Invisible women: The experiences of Black female doctoral students at the University of Michigan. In R. O. Mabokela & A. L. Green (Eds.), Sisters of the academy: Emergent Black women scholars in higher education (pp. 105–115). Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing

9

The Broken Promise of Neoliberal Restructuring of South African Higher Education

Ivor Baatjes, Carol Anne Spreen, and Salim Vally

Introduction Higher education in South Africa has experienced many changes since the first democratic elections in 1994. Despite a shift toward racial integration and broader participation, this chapter argues that the academy in South Africa, previously a vital cog in the reproduction of racial capitalism, today continues to entrench inequality by embracing a neoliberal, market-oriented ideology—rhetorical flourishes in policy papers notwithstanding. In this chapter, we suggest that on the back of technocratic reform and the impact of corporate globalization, and despite important changes to the apartheid underpinnings of higher education, transformation of South African universities as democratic spheres for the public good can best be described as desultory. Seasoned academics and student activists throughout the world have, for some time, highlighted the development of universities into “assembly lines for production” and “lean but very mean” institutions (Barlow & Robertson, 1996; Giroux & Giroux, 2004; Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004, Levidow, 2005). South Africa has not escaped the market debasement of higher education. In this chapter, we show how this trajectory has gathered momentum as a result of the global economic meltdown and local austerity measures. Enthusiastic observers of the democratic transition in South Africa should be forgiven their bewilderment; many may wonder how the new democratic state can use a discourse of the left while implementing 139

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policies more generally equated with the right. How did neoliberalism get traction in the new South Africa, given the nation’s apartheid past and its lofty goals of equity and transformation? In this chapter, we set out to debunk the international myth of South Africa’s miracle transition and exceptionalism and show that it is, in fact, a country undergoing a rather ordinary institutional transformation, one that is in keeping with global models of neoliberal restructuring (Alexander, 2003). In the following sections, we describe how the transformation of higher education in South Africa is the story of continuing stratification and exclusion. Reconfiguring the tertiary landscape—a consequence of the racial imaginations of the erstwhile apartheid regime—has not resulted in a substantially reformed system. We argue that the result of the efforts of the postapartheid bureaucrats and managers has, in fact, been the elaboration of a “differentiated system,” one that in the contemporary case is designed to address market-driven skills and economic demands, global competition, and cost-efficiency through increased privatization, often at the cost of equity and inclusion.  We begin with a brief history of apartheid higher education which set in place the scaffolding of a differentiated system on the basis of “race” and class in South Africa. We describe how the evolution and embrace of neoliberal ideology has limited the role of the state and university in the national social transformation project. We show how the rationalization and consolidation of higher education institutions (HEIs) during a period of transition limited opportunities for increasing access and equity. We then discuss the increasing cost of education amid dwindling funding schemes for students and describe the emergence of the corporate university and a new managerial class in South Africa. Finally, we underscore the increasing importance of critical scholarship for social transformation and the role of universities as sites for struggle and possibility.

The Apartheid Legacy of Difference and Distribution The university system built under apartheid was replete with gross disparities between Black and White institutions and vast differences in opportunities for students on the basis of “race,” class, and gender. This social and racial stratification remains largely intact today. Though many scholars of higher education have compellingly documented a progressive role for universities in social transformation and state building after democratic transitions (Ordorika & Pusser, 2007), in this chapter we show that in South Africa neoliberal policies have helped to construct a different university–state building relationship, one that displaces the overarching national project of social transformation. Despite its relative global isolation during apartheid, higher education formed an integral part of a deeply embedded racial capitalist system. Its

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largely centralized bureaucratic control reinforced the asymmetrical racial distribution of power in South Africa. Prior to 1994, South Africa had 36 racially segregated HEIs, which were further differentiated according to languages and sociopolitical, academic, and intellectual traditions. English universities had strong Anglo-Saxon traditions, while the traditions in Afrikaans institutions were drawn from Dutch and German traditions (Hay & Monnapula-Mapesela, 2009, p. 11). Black universities that reflected ethnic differentiation, most operating in the apartheid homelands, were forced to adopt the traditions of the Afrikaner institutions that became dominant under Afrikaner nationalism in the 1950s. Enrollments in Black institutions remained low during the early apartheid years but increased during the 1970s and 1980s. With the rapid expansion in industrialization, skills shortages detrimental to economic advance became a significant problem. Job reservation legislation that favored the employment of Whites failed despite the introduction of vocational and technical school curricula for the White minority. An ideological framework that would entrench control over a Black majority became necessary while satisfying the economic needs of the dominant political group. State modernization during the 1970s required an increasingly more stable and better educated labor force, and access to higher education increased for a small number of Blacks. Control and access measures were put in place that allowed a smaller urban Black population into technical institutions and HEIs. The apartheid system bequeathed a differential postsecondary legacy. Privileged, well-resourced institutions were developed for White students and “historically disadvantaged” institutions for (using the official apartheid terminology) “African,” “colored,” and “Indian” students. Deep structural disparities in the higher education system during apartheid were entrenched in the university system through (1) unequal distribution of resources; (2) poor facilities and lack of capacity in Black institutions; (3) a skewed distribution of students in disciplines; and (4) inadequate governance. The participation of Black students and women in fields of sciences, engineering, and technology was restricted. The first postapartheid Ministry of Education left no room for uncertainty about the challenges of the higher education system and its goals in the post1994 period. The Higher Education Act 101 of 1997 not only established the groundwork for better governance and representation but made a clear case for the need to “redress past discrimination and ensure equal access” (Department of Education [DOE], 1997). That same year, White Paper 3: A Programme for the Transformation of Higher Education (DOE, 1997) put forward the need to set goals for equity and redress: The transformation of the higher education system and its institutions requires increased and broadened participation. Successful policy must

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overcome a historically determined pattern of fragmentation, inequality and inefficiency. It must increase access for black, women, disabled and mature students, and generate new curricula and flexible models of learning and teaching, including modes of delivery, to accommodate a larger and more diverse student population. (p. 6) It also recognized the need for strong financial support and quality to ensure success:  Such transformation involves not only abolishing all existing forms of unjust differentiation, but also measures of empowerment, including financial support to bring about equal opportunity for individuals and institutions…. Ensuring equity of access must be complemented by a concern for equity of outcomes. Increased access must not lead to a “revolving door” syndrome for students, with high failure and drop-out rates. In this respect, the Ministry is committed to ensuring that public funds earmarked for achieving redress and equity must be linked to measurable progress toward improving quality and reducing the high drop-out and repetition rates. (DOE, 1997, p. 7) The need to redress the imbalances of apartheid, to broaden “access” to education for all— especially Blacks, women, and mature learners—has been at the forefront of the national agenda. However, although public in name, the state only partially subsidizes higher education institutions. This leads to the increasing expectation that the institutions themselves will raise the remaining funds, usually from student fees and private endowments. Despite the concerns of the earlier National Commission on Higher Education, higher education has increasingly been placed beyond the reach of students from poor backgrounds. Later in this chapter, we will explain the key concerns that overshadow South Africa’s higher education transformation, namely costs and access. We suggest that the government’s financial aid loan scheme, designed to help the most disadvantaged students gain access to HEIs, is woefully inadequate. As the contemporary economic crisis deepens, retrenchment of staff continues. Academic support services, such as bridging courses to assist students from previously disadvantaged schools, have been replaced by a new emphasis on global skills development. This emphasis on a “skills revolution” through the National Skills Development Strategy III is being reinforced by the newly established Department of Higher Education and Training. Blade Nzimande, Minister of Higher Education and Training (also General Secretary of the South African Communist Party), has signaled in numerous speeches his intention and determination to use postsecondary

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institutions for the development of a skilled and capable workforce necessary for economic growth (Department of Higher Education, 2010a). Nzimande’s performance agreement with President Jacob Zuma focuses on his ability to develop human capital for the knowledge economy through the establishment of mechanisms, programs, and projects concerned with the intermediate and high-levels skills deemed necessary for economic growth. The implications for universities are clear: research, development, and innovation for human capital production should be their priority. While Nzimande recognizes the importance of human and social sciences, the likelihood that adequate funding for this vital domain of study will materialize is uncertain. Nzimande begins his first term in the new Ministry of Higher Education in the following context: (1) The Ministry has no proper budget; (2) 3 million young adults (43% of those between 18 and 24 years old) are “not in employment, education and training”; (3) 60% of the Further Education and Training Institutions are at risk and suffer severe and ongoing funding and debt crises; (4) the drop-out rate in universities is close to 50%; and (5) a formal economy that is unable to absorb workers. The changing nature of the South African state (from apartheid to neoliberalism) has created a particular relationship with higher education based on the state’s orientation toward the global economy. Today, South Africa’s embrace of the neoliberal project is reflected throughout the entire education system. As we illustrate throughout the rest of this chapter, neoliberal transformation in higher education is seen, inter alia, in the mergers of academic institutions, user fees, budgetary cutbacks to public institutions, and the introduction of new funding formulas. Also apparent are competition between public and private institutions and an obsession with a human capital theory-driven “skills revolution.” This relationship creates a tension between the emancipatory and instrumentalist traditions of higher education.

Charting the Neoliberal Landscape of Transformation: Collaboration or Consolidation? The evolution of the neoliberal project in South Africa has been well documented (Adelzadeh, 1996; Alexander, 2002; Bond, 2000; Saul, 2006) and can be seen in the aggressive program of corporatization, marketization, and privatization in both the economic and social spheres. The analyses of the scholars cited earlier suggest that neoliberalism influenced South African social and economic policies in ways similar to those in other countries. The adoption of neoliberalism by the newly elected government can be explained by the panic response to economic instability in the 1990s and ideological pressures of powerful international financial

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institutions, which precipitated the displacement of the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) by the Growth, Employment and Redistribution strategy (GEAR). According to Adelzadeh (1996), the original RDP proposed by the African National Congress was a macroeconomic policy framework based on a Keynesian paradigm. The RDP was shaped through the participation of civil-society organizations and a wide range of experts in preparation for the socioeconomic transformation in postapartheid South Africa. The RDP linked reconstruction and development as it recognized the interconnectedness of deeply rooted problems (lack of housing, a shortage of jobs, inadequate education and health care, and a failing economy).  It therefore proposed five key programs: (1) meeting basic needs; (2) developing human resources; (3) democratizing the state and society; (4) building the economy; and (5) implementing the RDP. All of these have implications for restructuring higher education as a public service. Instead, as a result of the changing global political landscape and the strong influence of neoliberalism in the middle to late 1990s, the original RDP was pushed aside in favor of GEAR, a neoliberal framework first initiated during the twilight years of apartheid and supported by the business sector, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. GEAR became the macroeconomic strategy adopted by the Department of Finance in June 1996—a macroeconomic policy stripped of its redistribution ideals1 (Adelzadeh, 1996). The architects of GEAR were not concerned with the role of universities in promoting collective well-being or improving the social order; instead, HEIs were to be redesigned to serve the needs of a shifting economy, one that was then entering the global marketplace. Instead of increasing the role of universities, owing to the increasing demands of other social services (such as basic education, health, housing, and welfare), postsecondary institutions were being consolidated, streamlined, and encouraged to become more “cost efficient” by doing more with less. During these transitional years (1994–2004), the South African HEIs experienced rapid transformations. Through various commissions, policy formulations, plans, and structures, attempts were made to direct the role of higher education to the goals of GEAR. When former Minister Kader Asmal described the landscape of South African higher education in 1999 as one that was largely “dictated by the geo-political imagination of apartheid planners,” many academics and students eagerly anticipated a new vision on which the academy would be reconfigured, one that, some ambitiously proclaimed, would even inspire a continental renewal. Changing the “institutional landscape” was widely perceived as promoting the regional sharing of resources, including academic staff and libraries, eliminating duplication, and encouraging synergies between disciplines, universities, and communities. The goal was to provide regional collaboration across institutions, for rationalization, delivery,

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and program development, thus reducing the number of HEIs. According to Asmal, this process of restructuring was informed by the need to redress the problems of access and resource inequalities across HEIs, to address the challenges of globalization and the economy by producing better skilled graduates, and to ensure that limited resources in the sector were efficiently utilized. It was hoped that this would reduce high drop-out numbers and low research outputs (DOE, 2002, p. 5).  However, many innovative aspects of the earlier reforms designed to promote equity and credit transfer, such as recognition of prior learning (which held much promise for trade unions and was aimed at challenging exclusionary practices of formal institutions by breaking down barriers to access and routes of progress for working-class students), were not extensively implemented. In many ways, the merger process initiated in the late 1990s resulted in changing the “size and shape” of higher education in South Africa by reducing the number of higher education institutions from 36 to 21 and, in a parallel process, “rationalizing” the number of colleges from 120 to 50 (Council on Higher Education [CHE], 2001, p. 22). Teacher training colleges were largely closed down, although a few were “incorporated” into universities. Merging institutions incurred huge expenses involving major infrastructural changes. The rationalization process involved historically White institutions’ absorbing and reconfiguring formerly Black institutions. Hence, many institutions had to deal with rising tensions related to the way in which the mergers proceeded and with a range of new problems facing students, such as infrastructure and access between main and satellite campuses, language of instruction, and the unification of fees across the new institution. The most significant change in higher education was how, in a very short period of time, “306 separate institutions for post-school education were radically reduced to at best 72 remaining institutions” (Jansen, 2004, p. 296). Today, the South African higher education system consists of 24 public institutions: 11 universities, 5 universities of technology (previously known as technikons), 6 “comprehensive institutions” (mergers between a university and technikon programs), and 2 institutes for higher education (Breier & Mabizela, 2008, p. 292; CHE, 2009). Student enrollments in public HEIs range from 10,000 students in the smaller universities to 210,000 students in the case of the largely correspondence-based university, University of South Africa (Breier & Mabizela, 2008; CHE, 2004). The number of private HEIs in South Africa has grown to 103 since the early 1990s (CHE, 2009, p. 11). Yet, to argue that these gains meet the goals of transformation is misleading. Downsizing and rationalization occurred at the time when “access and enrollment increased, which had a critical impact on the level and type of education that was now available to the majority institutions” (Jansen, 2004, p. 296). By 2006, it became apparent that though Black student enrollment rates increased in all institutions, up to 50% of students did not complete their

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degrees or diplomas. A comprehensive study (Koen, Cele, & Libhaber, 2006) showed that a sizable number of students are annually pushed out of higher education through financial exclusions and lack of academic support, whereas courses and entire departments are summarily shut down largely because revenues do not exceed costs. This alarming situation is not limited to “historically disadvantaged institutions.” The University of the Witwatersrand, a formerly English-medium “White” institution, for instance, admitted that 33% of students drop out (Koen et al., 2006). According to the CHE, in 2007 (1) only 1.6% of the population was enrolled in higher education; (2) 8.9% of the population had attained a tertiary degree; and (3) though the participation rate of 16% (for the age group 20–24) was much higher than that of other sub-Saharan African countries (on average, 5%), it was much lower than that of Latin America and the Caribbean (31%), East Asia and the Pacific (25%), and North America and Western Europe (70%). Though the discussion of the problem of access now appears to have shifted toward an issue of class, those in the lower income strata are still mainly Black. The DOE refers to the rationalization process as successful, but many academics remain skeptical. Minister Asmal’s “tirisano” or “call to action” list of priorities did not adequately deal with the predicament of dwindling resources, the projected costs of reconfiguring higher education, cuts in state subsidies, or escalating student debt (Motala, Vally, & Modiba, as cited in Chisholm, Motala, & Vally, 2003). There is a number of implications to consider. There is a distinct disincentive to enroll disadvantaged students or expand the number of enrollments. Universities which limit the number of undergraduate students and ensure a higher rate of graduates are rewarded with greater subsidies. There is a rationale of “quality” behind the formula— taking in fewer and better students to ensure higher outputs and success. In addition, the weight on teaching and research outputs implies that institutions have to provide more support and select better students. This means competing for fee-paying students (as the subsidy does not cover institutional costs) and top-achieving students (who might have better chances of graduating and in a shorter period of time). An alarming result is that universities have started to cap student numbers and to reduce numbers of new applicants. The consequence is that disadvantaged students have fewer chances for accessing the system, even if they have met the necessary academic requirements. This is either because they are not able to afford the costs of their studies, as the government is not able to provide financial aid for all qualifying students, or simply because there is not enough space at institutions for all new students. Crises are also evident throughout the educational system. They emanate from an economic model that clearly prevents people from exercising control over their own economic affairs and finding solutions that serve the needs of the majority. Even as HEIs have been expanding access and trying to

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meet market demands, they continue to experience a number of additional tensions and problems. For faculty and students, these issues include (1) recurring funding crises in HEIs; (2) the emergence of managerialism; (3) the failure of mergers; (4) threats to academic freedom; (5) domestication of academics; and (6) the corporatization of HEIs (Baatjes, 2005; Pithouse, 2006; Vally, 2007). These developments in HEIs continue to be recurring themes and have encouraged different forms of resistance among staff, students, and social movements. Over the last 16 years, numerous strikes and protests (which included faculty and civil-society organizations) addressed lack of access to higher education and declining financial support for working-class students, the high attrition rate among students, and a slow process of degree completion. The increasing debt of HEIs and the gradual restructuring of state funding were major concerns, along with increased demands for research performance and capacity, corporatization of HEIs, and limitations on academic freedom and autonomy. Though significant protest action among academic staff and students was recorded immediately after the rationalization of HEIs in the late 1990s, as recently as April 2010 police shot protesting students at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. The students complained of poor accommodation and high food prices, fee hikes, and exclusions. In subsequent days, the protest spread to five other campuses. These protests followed those on the Durban University of Technology campus a week earlier. The list of demands from students appears to be similar from year to year and often is related to both the conditions within HEIs and students’ material needs. However, as with elsewhere in the world, protest actions have also been linked to the deteriorating conditions of cleaning staff (or “living wage” campaigns), which came as a result of outsourcing (privatization) at HEIs. These issues centered around the rationalization of enrollment and access. These were major drivers of continued protest and contestation throughout the country. Since 1999, excluding students because of their inability to pay fees has become common practice and so have the continued student protests (Koen et al., 2006). Unlike the past struggles against apartheid education, the new struggles are directed at a system determined to commodify higher education and place it out of reach of many who desire it.

The Cost of Higher Education Despite public perception to the contrary, public higher education in South Africa is not free, and its cost has been rising every year. This has certainly put pressure on students to confront rising costs and on the state and institutions to provide more financial aid for needy students. However, in

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a deteriorating financial situation wherein resources and funding allocated to higher education cannot meet the high demand for access, the result is a combination of shrinking space for new students and massive exclusions on a financial basis for those who cannot keep up with fee increases.  The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) is a public institution established by the government to provide financial assistance to needy and deserving students. The scheme, which replaced a previous bursary system that covered most student costs in the 1980s, awards financial aid packages (loans) but often does not cover accommodation, food, and other costs beyond tuition fees. Owing to the effective decline in state appropriations over the years, student tuition fees had to be increased to compensate for this loss of income. A recent ministerial report on the NSFAS shows that only five HEIs provided more than 50% of what was needed to cover full costs (Department of Higher Education, 2010b). However, during this expansion, staff numbers were kept relatively constant, whereas student numbers increased at a much faster rate. Since the late 1990s, the pool of applicants to the scheme has increased exponentially every year, yet the mounting pressure and enrollment policies at institutions have forced the scheme to provide incentives for improved performance (such as converting up to 40% of the loan into a grant). The new funding formula encourages institutions to cap enrollments, and fee increases, despite an improvement in the financial aid scheme, results in financial exclusions. Access, previously one of the state’s main goals and crucial for the redress and development agendas, is being sidelined by a focus on success, shrinking allocations to education, and a discourse regarding efficiency. The merger process, at this stage, seems far from being able to achieve the goals of providing better access to the entire population. As universities increasingly model themselves after corporations and, in the process, redefine higher education as a private good (rather than a social asset), students have become the victims of a system that limits access. It is also the case that rising costs for students have not been coupled with increased faculty support. On the contrary, consolidation has led to fewer permanent faculty positions and a new reliance on external funding for faculty research and support. High-level research, measured in publication units per full-time employed academic staff member, shows a significant decrease since 1997. The deputy vice chancellor of the University of Johannesburg, Adam Habib (2009), recently argued that Brazil’s leading universities have twice the number of permanent academic appointments that South Africa’s institutions have for the same number of students. One dramatic consequence of this better endowment of staff is that Brazil’s higher education system produces 10,000 doctoral graduates a year as compared to South Africa’s 1,500.

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The Corporate University After the transition period of increased enrollment, mergers, and consolidation, the adoption of corporate culture as the appropriate form of management and leadership has become commonplace in South African HEIs. Through this model, which splits the university community into a small group of highly paid managers and “the rest of the staff ” (academics and administrative personnel), power and control are firmly lodged at the top, and leaders are handsomely rewarded. Placed against the wider backdrop of rationalization and increased work burden on faculty and staff, there has been increasing contest over the exorbitant salary packages awarded to the new corporate and managerial staff within universities. They range from R1m to R3.7m for administrators and executives, as compared to junior and senior academics who earn between R300,000 and R500,000 per annum (Mail and Guardian, Nov. 5, 2008). Not only is there a gap between faculty and administrator salaries, but faculty autonomy is declining and power is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few. Current reforms driven by corporate culture and corporate managerialism dismantle models of good governance and accountability, tenure, and conditions of service, reasonable workloads for staff, and access programs for previously disadvantaged students. This runs counter to efforts at strengthening community-based research projects and providing resources for research to advance the ideals of critical citizenship and democracy. The adoption of the “corporate-modeled, profit-protocol university” (Williams, 2001, p. 21) in South Africa, with its focus on productivity and endowments, fosters an understanding of transformation that is in total opposition to the role that universities are meant to play in addressing the wide range of socioeconomic problems in South African society. In fact, the corporate-modeled university reflects a state mission that advances the neoliberal project and postpones indefinitely the social and political transformation of the country. For many, “the idea of higher education as a public good is surrendered to the logic of the bottom line” (Giroux, 2003, p. 8). The desire to increase profit through corporate models of funding is understandable as we increasingly see universities being pressured to pursue entrepreneurial activities through third-stream funding ventures to deal with increasing student debt and annual deficits (Mail and Guardian, February 2, 2009). We next describe specific aspects of the corporate university both globally and within the South African context. Academic Capitalists In what are increasingly described as emerging entrepreneurial institutions, intellectual autonomy is overtaken by corporate interests. This creates a new class of entrepreneurs within universities who seek new niches for

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educational products as they uncritically capitulate and reorient education to the demands of the market. Slaughter and Rhoades (2004) turned attention to the phenomenon of academic capitalism whereby institutions and academics are encouraged to become entrepreneurs. There are a number of examples of this in South African universities. For instance, in the case of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, a company, Innovations, has been established within the university to pursue revenue, a portion of which could be used to alleviate the annual deficit caused by government cutbacks to the institution. The main thrust of these units is to source funding through government tenders, the National Skills Fund or Sectoral Education and Training Authorities, business and industry, and a declining donor sector. As a result, academic staff members are channeled into entrepreneurial ventures as part of the institutions income-generating ethic and the embedding of universities within the logic of academic capitalism. One way universities lure academic involvement in entrepreneurial enterprise is through “private remuneration policies” that allow financial gains from “intellectual skills.” At the same time, units or companies established within the institutions contribute generously to university coffers as “third-stream” sources of income. Although this business strategy is still in its infant stage in South Africa, it sets up faculty knowledge as capital for private gain. Self-Funded Programs Similarly, some universities have introduced “self-funded” programs (SFPs) as a means to maximize income over and above the revenue that they would get in the form of subsidies (first-stream income) from government. At the present moment, student fees constitute 30% of the total budget of universities. With the decline in allocations from government, these institutions are required to explore alternative mechanisms to secure funding, including SFPs and thirdstream funding ventures. The logic behind SFPs is that the “buyer” funds the costs of the entire program, including administration, materials, staffing, and the like. For instance, at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, which runs a few programs for disadvantaged and underqualified educators, the per-capita cost for one of its SFPs translated into R28,000. As a mainstream program within the same university, the per-capita cost would be R12,000. Under self-funding, the cost of enrolling at a university escalates enormously and makes it very difficult for an individual student to pay for his or her studies. This trend within the universities reinforces the corporate view of selling products at the highest possible price and of passing the increasing cost of education to the end user (student). The danger of using SFPs is that important programs, especially those intended for disadvantaged students, are at risk because the institution values them only as long as there is a willing “buyer.” This trend threatens the ideal of opening access and broadening participation of historically

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disadvantaged students. It also further diminishes the role of universities as agents of social transformation in a society characterized by deeply rooted and deepening social problems. Funding Research, Specific Students, and Programs Asymmetrical funding for research is another characteristic of the neoliberal university in South Africa. Most of the research funding in South Africa is directed to areas largely defined by the state on the basis of what is perceived as important to economic and social development (Habib, 2009). Scientific and technological research and programs have taken prominence over social science research. The market-oriented view of higher education is further seen in the kinds of academic programs that receive the most support from the state with the approval of the managers of these institutions. At present, universities receive generous subsidies from the government for postgraduate students; hence, programs at postgraduate level and those in science and technology appear to be of greatest importance. Though South Africa has an enormous challenge in addressing social inequality by increasing enrollments in higher education and strengthening undergraduate programs, it has become financially more rewarding to focus on postgraduate programs and students. At a master’s level, the subsidy could be as high as R300,000 per graduating student and, for doctoral level, as much as R500,000, depending on the area of study. The result is that very few resources are directed toward improving educational quality for the majority of students now entering university or supporting generic research. This undermines the establishment of a broad-based research foundation from which innovation can emerge. The problem looms larger if one recognizes that a significant amount of research resources are spent on institutional bureaucracies. Unlike in countries such as France, which have a relatively seamless flow between their science councils and universities, in South Africa these institutions report to different departments: science councils to departments of science and technology and the universities to the department of higher education. Research resources are, therefore, not expended optimally, and research decisions are not made efficiently, because of the competing bureaucratic claims and agendas that emanate from this institutional arrangement. Community Service HEIs in South Africa are giving strong support to a new and contested activity called community service, which, broadly defined, includes almost any kind of work that is done by academics or departments with “the community” or in relation to groups outside the academy. This is the case regardless of social

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class and even if the research does not benefit the community. The emphasis placed on community service comes at a time when HEIs are clearly faced with questions about their social responsibility and contribution to the common good. Though some departments or centers are involved with important community issues, the overall involvement in real community service is limited. One could argue that community service by universities is largely a public relations exercise by HEIs struggling to protect their roles as key institutions responsible for nurturing caring and critical citizenship and substantive democracy. When community service is equated with issues of poverty, homelessness, inequality, starvation, crime, and environmental degradation, it is highly unlikely that any of these issues will be addressed.

Critical Scholarship and Social Transformation in the University Increasingly, scholars are beginning to warn against the instrumentalist corporate logic that universities have been forced to adopt—knowledge as capital and a form of investment in the economy (Baatjes, 2005; Badat, 2007; Vally, 2007). Badat draws attention not only to the asymmetrical support for physical over social sciences within HEIs in South Africa but to the urgency of critical scholarship that is also needed to address the deeply rooted social and educational inequalities that are still prevalent in South African society. Badat suggests, There is no shortage of vital issues that should be investigated: the dynamics and character of South Africa’s transition; the emerging economic and social structure; the changing dynamics of relations of race, class and gender and their implications for poverty, unemployment and other inequalities; the character of the emerging black bourgeoisie, its relations to business and the state and economic and political trajectories; and conceptions of “development” and “democracy.” (Mail and Guardian, April 15, 2008) Badat and others draw attention to the urgent need for HEIs to revisit their visions, academic priorities, and organizational and programmatic arrangements in light of the enormous socioeconomic and political challenges facing South Africa. Individual and social agency in South African universities, and access to institutions, are defined largely through market-driven notions, fiscal parsimony, corporate values, and corporate planning frameworks. Beneath institutional efforts to align training to the competitive global “new knowledge economy,” there exists a rarely questioned assumption that the market is an appropriate model for education.2 Learning that addresses the self in relation to public life, social

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responsibility, and democratic citizenship is marginalized in favor of a culture of commercialization. The relevance of academic work is also being linked to productivity as measured by peer-reviewed journal publications and associated rating scales. Schugurensky (2006) suggests, “It is time to bring back the interests and needs of the majority of the population to the research agenda” (p. 316). Henry and Susan Giroux (2004) make a similar argument in their book, Take Back Higher Education. We suggest this is the case for South Africa, where there is a need for the protection of the common good and to place public interest before profits. Academics should lead the defense of higher education as a public good and an autonomous sphere of critical democratic citizenry. In turn, they should resist commercial and corporate values as guides to the purpose and mission of our institutions. We believe that the emphasis in South Africa on technical rationality, simplistic pragmatism, and undemocratic managerial imperatives must be countered. Proactively, initiatives should include linking programs and projects to community needs and struggles and preventing the exclusion of poor students.  Davies’s (2005) evocative essay titled “The (Im) possibility of Intellectual Work in Neoliberal Regimes” has special resonance for South Africa’s higher education system. She challenges the dry discourse of managerialism in higher education as a language that “kills off conscience.” Arguing that managerialism provides jargon to which universities in South Africa have increasingly succumbed, Davies warns that universities are accommodating a practice that demonizes genuine social responsibility and collegiality, whereby critique has become a risky endeavor. More concretely, academics, particularly those who dissent, are constantly evaluated. It is a form of accountability premised on distrust, individual advancement, and the devaluing of a commitment to the public good. In this climate, rampant individualism, entrepreneurship, and competitiveness are encouraged for the sake of economic survival. Monitoring mechanisms for producing “appropriate” research are vigorously adhered to and consume limited funds.3 These areas of intellectual work are being contested. A number of progressive academics have spoken out about the domestication and subjugation of academic labor within this neoliberal framework. Two key arguments bind together the resistance from progressive scholars to the neoliberal project and corporatization of HEIs in South Africa. On the one hand is the notion that higher education should be protected and defended as a space of critical scholarship, a vision of the university as a public sphere (Pusser, 2006) dedicated to social responsibility and emancipatory teaching practices that favor freedom, democracy, and critical citizenship. On the other hand is the importance of academic freedom that recognizes “that intellectual inquiry that is unpopular and critical should be safeguarded and treated as an important social asset, and that public intellectuals are more than merely functionaries of the corporate order” (Giroux, 2003,

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p. 38). The first part of this binary argument is based on the urgency of HEIs to respond through their teaching, research, and agency to the reproduction and deepening of socioeconomic problems experienced by the larger majority of the South African population. Recurring questions are being asked about academic labor: What is to be gained through the production of research outputs? Whose interests are being served? How will this system of performativity contribute to the creation of a democratic South African society? It also questions the neoliberal assumptions that undermine those academic departments, programs, and curricula that cannot be translated into subject matter for commercial gain. For instance, though curricula concerned with pressing social issues such as racism, sexism, environmental justice, ethics, and so forth are of utmost importance within a South African context, they are at risk of being eliminated because they lack market value. Pithouse (2006), in Asinamali: University Struggles in Post-Apartheid South Africa, also describes how the university in South Africa has transformed “from ivory tower to marketplace.” Similarly, we argue that the corporate model, contrary to the hegemonic discourse, is neither efficient nor effective and, most important, has little to do with social transformation or sound pedagogical practice. We share the central assertion in the book that calls for a defense of higher education as a public good and an autonomous sphere of critical and productive democratic citizenry and for resistance to the imposition of commercial values to subvert the purpose and mission of South African institutions. We believe that a priority for researchers should be a comparative investigation of neoliberal projects and the inequalities that arise out of these projects in different parts of South Africa and of the world. Genuinely collaborative teams of researchers linking the North and South have a role to play here. Areas for higher education scholarship requiring considerably more attention include environmental justice, the effects of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, indigenous knowledge, and collective human rights. Further research and activism are required to illuminate not only the ideology and symbols of discrimination but the structural inequalities that are perpetuated in South African HEIs.

Conclusion: Universities as Sites of Struggle and Possibilities Scholars of the neoliberal transformation of South Africa interested in preserving access, equity, and social justice face two daunting questions: Where do we begin, and are we too late? Dave Hill (2004) implies that the influence of “big business and their governments” has already compromised university research (p. 14). As we’ve shown, there is a paradox: the funding of research is often linked to commercial interests; therefore, the potential for critical pedagogy, or for alternative perspectives in official spaces as a

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bulwark against these times, is severely constrained. We are more sanguine about the spaces and possibilities that exist in formal institutions. Once again, our argument relates to strategies involving issues of contestation, of agency, of “whose knowledge counts,” and of resistance (Vally, 2006). These issues confront South Africa more starkly than before, and areas of intervention are certainly possible, in fact necessary, if higher education is to be effective in these times. Hill (2004), interpreting Paulo Freire, correctly claims that not enough academics are working as critical pedagogues who orient themselves toward concrete struggles in the public and political domains. Collectively, the numerous protests across South Africa over the last decade have brought to the fore a dissatisfaction that points to the consequences of the neoliberal project. As this chapter has illustrated, these concerns have been repeatedly raised as part of a broader transformation debate. They have been highlighted by the rising student protests, media debates about funding cuts, and numerous calls from within civil society, including faculty, social movements, and trade unions. Yet, even among those activists who want to transform education to serve democratic ends, reservations abound concerning the importance of going beyond institutional spaces (Vally, 2006). Hill (2004) suggests, “To engage as critical cultural workers would require academics to politicize their research by becoming social actors who mobilize, develop political clarity, establish strategic alliances…” (p. 16). We feel the time is ripe for such mobilization to occur in South Africa. Methodologies of higher education research that embrace participatory action and popular education can become a “transformative endeavor unembarrassed by the label ‘political’ and unafraid to consummate a relationship with an emancipatory consciousness” (Kincheloe & McLaren 1998, p. 264). Crucially, an interdisciplinary approach to examining the transformation of higher education that recognizes the contributions of history, politics, and economics as well as representations from art, literature, and drama should be pursued (Vally, 2006).  Burbules and Torres (2009) suggest that from “these critical perspectives might emerge a new educational model … including education in the context of new popular cultures and non-traditional social movements; new models of rural education for marginalized areas and the education of the poor; new models for migrant education, for the education of street children” (p. 19). Incorporation of these perspectives is central to social transformation in South Africa. The veteran Tanzanian academic-activist, Issa Shivji (2005) wistfully recalls how the university, once an essential core of the right to self-determination and social development, has been undermined by the neoliberal offensive: Universities were dubbed white elephants. We did not need thinkers, asserted our erstwhile benefactors. We only needed storekeepers and

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bank tellers and computer operators and marketing managers … Universities are not cost-effective, decreed the World Bank. Education, knowledge must be sold and bought on the world market. The idea of providing free education, which really meant using citizens’ money to educate their children rather than to buy guns to suppress them, was Nyerere’s bad joke. (p. 35) Like Shivji, we believe that the gains of the past must be reclaimed and made transcendent, so that “we should not lose the centrality of the struggle of ideas and the university as the centre of ideas of struggle” (Shivji, 2005, p. 35). On being awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 1993, Toni Morrison presciently warned of the deep-rooted effects of neoliberalism in higher education: “There will be more of the language of surveillance disguised as research; of politics and history calculated to render the suffering of millions mute; language glamorized to thrill the dissatisfied and bereft into assaulting their neighbors; arrogant pseudo-empirical language crafted to lock creative people into cages of inferiority and hopelessness” (quoted in Davies, 2005, p. 7). These iron cages can be dismantled, collectively and cooperatively. We know there are alternatives to the current dystopia that can be re-imagined.

Notes 1 See Adelzadeh (1996) for a detailed discussion. 2 See ASGISA (Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative—South Africa) and JIPSA (Joint Initiative for Priority Skills Acquisition) for particular policy assumptions about higher education, the market, and economic growth.  3 Some of the starker, recent headlines in newspapers underline a clear trend in this direction. For example, an article titled “New Probe into Negative Media Publicity” comments on developments at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (Sunday Tribune, November 19, 2006). Another article, “Private Investigators Fingerprint Staff and Take Computer” tries to “find out who circulated an internal document revealing vast salary discrepancies among staff ” at the University of Fort Hare (Daily Dispatch, November 17, 2006).

References Adelzadeh, A. (1996). From the RDP to GEAR: The gradual embracing of neoliberalism in economic policy. Transformation, 31, 66–95. Alexander, N. (2003). An ordinary country: Issues in the transition from apartheid to democracy in South Africa. Durban, South Africa: University of Natal Press. Baatjes, I. (2005). Neoliberal fatalism and the corporatization of higher education in South Africa: Education as market fantasy or education as a public good? Quarterly Review of Education and Training, 12 (1), 25–33. Badat, S. (2007). Higher education transformation in South Africa Post-1994: Towards a critical assessment. Solomon Mahlangu Education Lecture, June 12, 2007, Constitution Hill.

The Broken Promise of Neoliberal Restructuring  •  157 Barlow, M., & Robertson, H. J. (1996). The homogenisation of education. In J. Mander & E. Goldsmith (Eds.), The case against the global economy (pp. 60–70). San Francisco: Sierra Club Books. Bond, P. (2000). Elite transition: From apartheid to neoliberalism in South Africa. London: Pluto Press. Bond, P. (2008). Social movements and corporate responsibility in South Africa [Special issue]. Development and Change. The Hague: Institute of Social Studies. Breier, M., & Mabizela, M. (2008). Higher education. HRD Review 2008. Cape Town, South Africa: HSRC Press. Burbules, N., & Torres, C.A. (2000). Globalization and education: Critical perspectives. London: Routledge. Chisholm, L., Motala, S., & Vally, S. (Eds.). (2003). South African education policy review. Sandown: Heinemann. Council on Higher Education. (2004). South African higher education in the first decade of democracy. Pretoria, South Africa: Author. Council on Higher Education. (2007). Review of higher education in South Africa: Selected themes. Pretoria, South Africa: Author. Council on Higher Education. (2009). Higher education monitor no. 8: The state of higher education in South Africa. Pretoria, South Africa: Author. Davies, B. (2005). The (im)possibility of intellectual work in neoliberal regimes. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 26 (1), 1–14. Department of Education. (1997). White paper 3: A programme for the transformation of higher Education. Pretoria, South Africa: Author. Department of Education. (2002). Transformation and restructuring: A new institutional landscape for higher education. Pretoria, South Africa: Author. Department of Higher Education. (2010a). Draft national skills development strategy III. Pretoria, South Africa: Author. Department of Higher Education. (2010b). Report of the ministerial review of the national student financial aid scheme. Pretoria, South Africa: Author. Giroux, H. A. (2003). Public spaces, private lives: Democracy beyond 9/11. London: Rowman & Littlefield. Giroux, H. A., & Giroux, S. (2004). Take back higher education: Race, youth and the crisis of democracy in the post-civil rights era. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Habib, A. (2009). Managing higher education institutions in contemporary South Africa: Advancing progressive agendas in a neo-liberal and technicist world. First thoughts at the Higher Education Roundtable, October 27–29, 2009, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa. Hay, D., & Monnapula-Mapesela, M. (2009). South African higher education before and after 1994: A policy analysis perspective. In E. Bitzer (Ed.), Higher education in South Africa (pp. 3–20). Stellenbosch, South Africa: SUN Media. The highs and lows of tertiary education. (2009, February 2). Mail and Guardian. Retrieved on February 2, 2009, from http://www.mg.co.za/article/2009-02-20the-highs-and-lows-of-tertiary-education Hill, D. (2004, November). Educational perversion and global neo-liberalism: A Marxist critique. Cultural Logic. Retrieved on September 12, 2010, from http:// eserver.org/clogic/2004/hill.html Jansen, J. D. (2004). Changing and continuities in South Africa’s higher education system, 1994 to 2004. In L. Chisholm (Ed.), Changing class (pp. 293–314). Cape Town, South Africa: HSRC Press.

158  •  Ivor Baatjes, Carol Anne Spreen, and Salim Vally Kincheloe, J. L., & McLaren, P. L. (1998). Rethinking critical theory and qualitative research. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The landscape of qualitative research: Theories and issues. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publication. Koen, C., Cele, M., & Libhaber, A. (2006). Student activism and student exclusions in South Africa. International Journal of Educational Development, 26, 404–414. Levidow, L. (2005). Neoliberal agendas for higher education. In A. Saad-Filho & D. Johnston (Eds.), Neoliberalism: A critical reader (pp. 156–162). London: Pluto Press. Ordorika, I., & Pusser, B. (2007). La máxima casa de estudios: The Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México as a state-building university. In P. G. Altbach & J. Balán (Eds.), The struggle to compete: Building world-class universities in Asia And Latin America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Pithouse, R. (Ed.). (2006). Asinamali: University struggles in post-apartheid South Africa. Asmara: Africa World Press. Pusser, B. (2006). Reconsidering higher education and the public good: The role of public spheres. In W. G. Tierney (Ed.), Governance and the public good. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press. Saul, J. S. (2006). Development after globalization: Theory and practice for the embattled South in a new imperial age. Gurgaon, New Delhi, India: Three Essays Collective. Schugurensky, D. (2006). The political economy of higher education in the time of global markets: Whither the social responsibility of the university? In R. A. Rhoads & C. A.Torres (Eds.), The university, state and market: The political economy of globalization in Americas. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Shivji, I. (2005). Whither university: Education as market fantasy or education as a public good? Quarterly Review of Education and Training, 12 (1), 34–36. Slaughter, S., & Leslie, L. L. (1997). Academic capitalism: Politics, policies, and the entrepreneurial university. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Slaughter, S., & Rhoades, G. (2004). Academic capitalism and the new economy: Markets, state, and higher education. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Vally, S. (2006). Resurgent comparative education in these exigent times. Southern African Review of Education, 11 (1). Vally, S. (2007). Higher education in South Africa: Market, mill or public good? Journal of Higher Education in Africa, 5 (1). The vice in vice chancellor. (2008, November 5). Mail and Guardian. Retrieved on November, 5, 2008, from http://www.mg.co.za/article/2008-11-05-the-vice-in-vc Williams, J. J. (2001). Franchising the university. In H. Giroux & K. Myrsiades, Beyond the corporate university: Culture and pedagogy in the new millennium (pp. 15–28). New York: Rowman & Littlefield.

10

Higher Education and the Public Sphere in Angola

Ken Kempner and Ana Jurema

Introduction African higher education faces “unprecedented challenges” among its 54 countries (Teferra & Altbach, 2004). Even though higher education throughout Africa is a legacy of European colonialism, it is highly underdeveloped, with only 300 institutions meeting the definition of universities. Of course, the education of adults does not take place only in the university sector, but development outside of postsecondary institutions is also lacking throughout much of the continent. Given the state of educational underdevelopment, it is not surprising that there is an enormous, unmet demand for access to higher education. The reasons for these “unprecedented challenges” range across economic, government, and social crises brought about by colonialism, civil strife, and failed states. The postcolonial era for many African nations has created a tumultuous social and economic context wherein higher education development, in particular, has lagged behind other sectors. Looking across all of Africa, less than 3% of the eligible age group for higher education is enrolled. Egypt, with 1.5 million students in higher education, offers the best access, followed by Nigeria (900,000 students) and South Africa (500,000) (Teferra & Altbach, 2004). Most other African countries have even less ability to provide adequate access to higher education because of their economic circumstances and postcolonial status. Mozambique and Angola, former Portuguese colonies, provide interesting examples of the enduring effects of colonialism on a nation’s ability to develop its higher education capacity. Historically, education of the indigenous 159

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population in the Portuguese colonies, in particular, was not only of low value but a disincentive for the colonizers to provide. As Johnston explains (1990, p. 309), development, or lack thereof, in education is a “microcosm” of the broader political or colonial process. For example, limiting access to education assured a continuous supply of unskilled labor to serve the needs of Mozambique’s capitalist neighbors and colonizer. Creating opportunities to gain access to knowledge and using education as an instrument of social change provide the state methods by which to democratize education. How the state distributes education and to whom helps explain why education “serves as a primary terrain of conflict over the form of the state.” Carnoy and Samoff (1990) comment further: “Precisely because the nature of the state determines the character of education, the schools become sites of conflicts about the character of and control over the state” (p. 380). Herein lies the distinct role education plays in the public sphere as both a commodity for social distribution and as a source of economic and social development. Unfortunately, much of the African legacy maintains social reproduction by withholding education to preserve an uneducated workforce that has only its labor to sell. To understand more specifically the contemporary effect of these colonial processes on a particular case, we focus in this chapter on the situation of Angola. Angola is only recently emerging from more than 40 years of war: a colonial war for independence (1960–1975) followed by a civil war (1975– 2002). Angola is both a unique and common national case to consider in understanding the place of higher education in the public sphere. As a case, it is somewhat unique in its Portuguese legacy and in its transition from an ally of the former Soviet Union to a capitalism-oriented state. Given its context of enormous economic, political, and social problems, what, if any, role does higher education play in Angola as a public sphere? What role should higher education play with so many other competing social priorities? These questions guide our inquiry of Angolan higher education and its potential influence as a public sphere. In many ways, Angola offers an excellent social research opportunity to observe how higher education develops in a postcolonial society in what could be characterized as a premarket era. Angolan higher education could be considered in a pre-academic capitalist state (Slaughter & Rhoades, 2009) with the recent development of the country’s millennium development goals (MDGs). In our assessment of Angola, we will address first its colonial legacy and the role education has played both in maintaining and overcoming this legacy. Next, we consider the role higher education is playing in nation building and as a public sphere in contemporary Angola. We conclude by addressing how the case of Angola helps inform other African nations and other developing countries on the role and contradictory nature of higher education. Although our focus is on Angola and the legacy of

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Portuguese colonialism, the problems and the difficulties posed for national development are unfortunately all too common across Africa and the newly industrializing countries.

Angola’s Colonial Legacy To understand the role of Angolan higher education as a public sphere, we begin by describing further the frame of the socioeconomic, political, and cultural development and the national priorities of the country. First, we address the educational system in general, followed by a closer look at higher education. Situated in sub-Saharan Africa, Angola is the third major country in size and population after Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan. Although population estimates are unreliable, various United Nations agencies (mainly the United Nations Development Programme and United Nations Children’s Fund [UNICEF]) estimated the population in 2006 at about 16 million, with 3 million living in the capital, Luanda. The population of Angola is very young, 60% being younger than 18 years of age. Over the last 40 years, owing to the economic and social situation from first the colonial war and then civil war, the population has shifted from rural to urban areas, with the majority (60%) now living in urban locations. The war for independence, supported by Movimento Popular pela Libertação de Angola, or Popular Movement for Angola’s Liberation (MPLA), was followed by a civil war that was internationalized, with each side supported by either the United States or the Soviet Union. External intervention in the civil war ended with the New York agreement signed by Angola, South Africa, and Cuba. From this period, the war became an internal one between União Nacional para Independência Total de Angola, or National Union for Angola’s Total Independence (UNITA) and the government of Angola, apparently with no international intervention. In 1992, the Bicesse agreement was signed, which laid down the political and legal frame for the establishment of a democratic and pluralist system. Elections were subsequently held, but the results were contested by UNITA. UNITA, which lost the election, restarted the war that continued until the death of UNITA’s leader in 2002. The Angolan government subsequently declared a ceasefire and signed the Luena Understanding Memorandum. According to the World Bank document Interim Strategy Note (World Bank, 2005), as a consequence of 40 years of war 750,000 Angolans died, 450,000 were refugees in neighboring countries, and 4.5 million were displaced within Angola. With the final end of the wars, the Angolan government embraced a model of democratic participation with a clear separation of powers between the legislature (a multiparty national assembly established in 1992) and the executive branch (appointed by majority party and the judiciary). The

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president, as of 2010, is José Eduardo dos Santos, who has led the country since September 1979. Currently, the MPLA holds approximately 80% of the legislative seats, with the UNITA opposition having only 10% and the remainder divided among other minority groups. The MPLA runs the Angolan economy and has total control of the petroleum and diamond production, the country’s main products. The MPLA also has total control of the public apparatus at all levels of central, provincial, and municipal government, and total control of the army. MPLA’s dominance is assured even further by a practically nonexistent civil society and a population tired of struggling with continual war and willing to accept peace at any price. Because of continued war, Angola has not been self-sufficient and has depended on international aid to feed part of its population. Agriculture accounts for only 8% of the gross domestic product (GDP) (Programa Geral do Governo, 2005–2006). In opposition to the decline in the agricultural sector, Angola has rapidly increased its production of oil to become the second major oil producer in the sub-Sahara region. Oil production accounts for approximately 57% of GDP but, similar to problems of other emerging petroleum states, the Angolan population is typically not the immediate beneficiary of petroleum revenues. Because oil production is such a highly intensive and technical industry, the majority of revenues are accrued by skilled expatriate workers and international oil conglomerates. Overall, since the end of the war in 2002, economic growth for Angola has been positive. GDP grew 11.7% in 2004, with expectations of 16–20% growth in 2005–2006 before the world financial problems (World Bank, 2008). Inflation has been low (10–15%), however, and the recent political stability has been encouraging for continued economic growth. As is all too typical for emerging nations, positive economic growth is overshadowed by the fact that a majority of Angolans have no access to jobs and basic health services and lack schooling literacy.

Education in Angola Given its economic and social conditions, Angola continues to move toward fulfillment of the MDGs, the first target being to “ensure that all boys and girls complete a full course of primary school by 2015” (Southern African Development Communities, n.d.). Enrollment in primary education has improved considerably, with the gross enrollment rate increasing to 5.8 million in 2007 (more than 75% as compared with 2003) and with 29,000 new teachers recruited between 2003 and 2005. This rate, however, is lower than the average in the Southern African Development Community (SADC). The net enrollment rate in primary school rose from 47% in 2004 to 56% in 2005, but Angola has the second-lowest rate in the SADC (average, 37%). The medium-term development plan (2009–2013), as part of the MDGs, is

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committed, however, to providing primary schools to 100% of Angolans by 2015. Increasing enrollment is only one part of the equation as estimates of completers in 2003 were still very low, at only 36%. The quality of education is another critical issue yet to be faced. Access to educational opportunities was highly limited during the colonial period in Africa, and Angola was no exception. Education beyond the primary level was available to very few Africans before 1960, with few advancing to secondary school, even by the early 1970s. In general, the quality of teaching at the primary level was low, with instruction provided by Africans with few professional qualifications (Uusihakala, Jurema, & Pedium Education Consultants and Capacity Trust, 2008). The various struggles against the Portuguese for independence and then the civil war left the educational system in chaos. The First Party Congress did respond to the education crisis by resolving to institute an 8-year compulsory system of free, basic education for children between ages 7 and 15 years. The government began implementation of its education plan in close cooperation with its allies, particularly Cuba and the Soviet Union. Hundreds of Cuban and Soviet teachers travelled to Angola to teach, with about 5,000 Angolan students studying in Cuba or the Soviet Union. Between 1977 and the mid1980s, school enrollment declined because of the dire effects of the civil war. Fighting disrupted the education of hundreds of thousands of school-age children, and little money was available for books, equipment, and schools. This period remains a deficit time for those generations and a continuing challenge for the country. Basic adult literacy continues to be extremely low, at 56% for men and 29% for women (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization [UNESCO], 2006). Even with compulsory education, the government reports a certain percentage of students are not in school owing to a lack of school buildings and teachers. Students are often responsible for paying additional school-related expenses, including fees for books, supplies, and even good grades. The Ministry of Education hired 20,000 new teachers in 2005 and continued to implement teacher training, but teachers tend to be underpaid, inadequately trained, and overworked (sometimes teaching two or three shifts a day). Teachers also reportedly demand payment or bribes directly from their students. Other factors, such as the presence of landmines, lack of resources and identity papers, and poor health also prevent children from regularly attending school. Several recent programs are expected to improve education in Angola, but enrollment rate at the primary level is approximately 74%. Rates of enrollment, retention, and completion still remain lower among girls (World Bank, 2009). The government of Angola, UNICEF, and UNESCO, among others, have been working on national reforms and several programs. In April 2004, the Ministry of Education held public consultations on the proposed

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“National Plan of Action for Education for All”. Nevertheless, many areas of rapid resettlement, areas hardest hit by the war, and remote rural areas continue to lack basic social services, including education.

Higher Education Habermas’s (1989) notion of the public sphere was the interlocking set of institutions, networks, and activities sustained in independent civil society beyond the nation-state and transactions in the market. The role of universities is essential in this interaction and public sphere because of their key role in creating new knowledge and the codification of this knowledge in the economic, political, social, and cultural sectors. Nonetheless, this role is now exercised globally. Possibly, a single research university can play a major role in the public sphere in its local community, particularly in the civil space of political debate and critical ideas about social organization. This role of university participation in the public sphere is not yet the case for Angolan institutions that are still very embryonic in their political development. The President of UAN, Angola’s only public university, João Sebastião Téta, observed in a public statement (Vemba, Gomes, and Miguel, 2009) that the university has to be a place of innovation, creativity, discovery, critics, preparation and construction of the future” (p. 5). He comments further on the role UAN plays in the public sphere by adding that the University may cooperate to guard the collective memory and to foster accountability of economic and social practices” (p. 5). According to the President, the role of higher education institutions is to contribute to the society’s development and well-being through the search and elaboration of new knowledge and offering this knowledge to the community, as well as to the nations’ executive institutions and decision-makers” (p. 5). He also explained in his public statement that UAN highlights knowledge as goods to serve society to solve a variety of problems” (p. 5). He does not name these goods, however. For the moment, the higher education institutions in Angola produce a labor force with higher education training of questionable quality with a limited role in the public sphere. Meanwhile, the majority of students, for their part, primarily attend private institutions. The present and future challenge for higher education, both in developed and developing countries, is to understand the place it holds in the “class conflict between the two dominant groups in the post-capitalist society: knowledge workers and service workers” (Drucker, cited in Rifkin, 1995, p. 176). The inherent conflict between workers who have access to education and those who do not is the foundation of “new and dangerous levels of stress” at the larger societal level (Rifkin, 1995). This stress is certainly present in the negotiation of the role higher education plays in Angola’s public sphere. Is higher education to be a path to social mobility or is it to secure the place

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knowledge workers and their families already hold in the social structure? This stress or conflict questions where the pendulum should rest in the debate over the democratizing or reproductive functions of education (Carnoy & Levin, 1984). If higher education is to be a source of national development, its place within the public sphere should be one of knowledge development in the local context, as we have discussed elsewhere (Kempner & Jurema, 1999). All too often, however, the model for many developing countries is for universities and the intellectuals within them to be disassociated from the problems of the larger society, because solutions are dictated externally by international agencies rather than developed internally. Local research and the internal development of intellectuals in the national universities to solve local problems are devalued. For this reason, the expansion of private universities in many countries, coupled with the increased development of partnerships with private companies, is creating what Chauí (1999) called an “operational university,” focused on results and becoming a contract mediator rather than an institution devoted to creating knowledge. Such institutions can no longer afford to be focused on the public discovery of disinterested science and are no longer the exclusive place where knowledge is produced. In Academic Capitalism and the New Economy, Slaughter and Rhoades (2009) describe a cultural system that valorizes higher education’s dual economic roles: generating revenue for academic institutions and producing knowledge and wealth to increase the global competitiveness of corporations. They also analyze the efforts of colleges and universities to develop, market, and sell research products, educational services, and consumer goods in the private marketplace. The educational corporations come to Angola to sell their services. Although the academic community does not respond alone to the emerging demands of society for information, the unfettered search for public knowledge is being substituted little by little by the operational, enterprise, or entrepreneurial university, whose main goal is private profit. This profit-seeking behavior has created what Slaughter and Leslie (1997) call “academic capitalism,” whereby universities and colleges develop, market, and sell research products and educational services in the private marketplace. Angolan higher education, however, participates in the academic capitalism system on a consumer basis. Rather than “profit seeking,” we refer to the situation of Angolan higher education as “profit bidding.” Angolan higher education is in a contradictory position, needing to purchase educational consumer goods produced elsewhere and having to bid for these purchases. The Angolan higher education system takes part in academic capitalism as a bidder, not a seller. Angolan institutions do not take part in the production of knowledge; they are consumers, members of the market sphere, rather than participants in a public sphere. Angola’s

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contradictory position in higher education is between selling (producing) and purchasing (consuming) educational services. Slaughter and Rhoades (2009) found in their investigation that higher education institutions created and disseminated new organizational structures and managerial capacity, thereby linking education and markets. Angolan higher education after the end of civil war participated in purchasing services instead of developing its production of knowledge capability. As we have found in other developing countries, the lack of resources available and the failure to support higher education in Angola has created a second-class professoriate with “substitute professors” and distinctions between those faculty who can afford to do research and those who cannot, based on “geography, gender, and class” (Kempner, 1994, p. 287). The diversity and array of higher education faculty is very limited; therefore, it creates a need for a large number of part-time faculty members. A further contradiction in the distinction between public and private institutions is the large majority of public university professors who also work for private institutions. Because of their multiple allegiances, these public university professors do not have enough time to fully perform their teaching duties, much less to conduct scientific investigation and to create a productive academic environment (Ministério de Educação [MED], 2005). Analyses of higher education, regardless of a nation’s status of development, tend to consider categories similar to those that we consider here for Angola. The historical context offers a basic understanding of the formation of a nation’s higher education system that helps inform the financial, management, governance, staff, and problematic issues confronting both public and private higher education. Similarly, we consider these categories and their effects on Angola in the following section. Historical Antecedents of Higher Education The mission of higher education in Angola is based on classic notions of the creation of high-level knowledge workers to serve the nation’s different sectors of social and economic activities. From a national perspective, the mission of higher education is to guarantee sound scientific, technical, cultural, and human training for Angolan citizens (Programa Geral do Governo, 2005–2006). To accomplish this mission, higher education is composed of degree and postgraduate courses. The degree level is composed of bachelor and licenciatura courses. The bachelor’s level is a three-year degree that offers applied, scientific orientation for work in a professional field. The licenciatura level constitutes the following four, five, or six years, depending on the academic area. In theory, this degree offers a deeper scientific preparation and adds concepts of scientific investigation in several areas in preparation for applied work in professional

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areas. The graduate programs encompass both academic (master’s- and doctorate-level work) and profession-oriented coursework of one year. In typical studies of developing countries, higher education has often been portrayed simplistically as either a tool of colonial power or a force of national development. The complexity of higher education in the public sphere goes beyond simple dichotomies. This complexity in postcolonial nation building embraces aspects of what Morrow and Torres (1995) have characterized as compensation, where higher education is used as a political dispensation for the lower classes. In such situations, the national elites leave the country to attend prestigious universities, whereas local higher education institutions are created merely to placate the middle classes. Alternatively, in some postcolonial countries higher education is a key component of the public sphere and central to all social, economic, and political negotiation processes. That is not the case in Angolan society, where the centrality of higher education as a public sphere in Angolan society has been shaped by the political situation: decades of civil war and a chief of state since 1979 who is the head of practically a one-party system. With the decision to implement new public universities throughout the country, the character and role of higher education as a public sphere has the potential to evolve to a more significant and central level in Angolan society. Higher education was launched only toward the end of the colonial era in 1958 with Catholic higher education for future priests in Luanda and Huambo. In 1962, the Estudos Gerais Universitários de Angola was created in Luanda as part of the Portuguese university system, providing facilities for the study of agriculture, forestry, civil engineering, medicine, veterinary medicine, and education. In 1968, the Estudos Gerais became the autonomous Universidade de Luanda, launching study programs in the natural sciences, geography, history, the romance languages, and literature. Shortly after independence, all nonstate educational institutions were closed down. In the following years, a law school and a corresponding master of arts program were created in Luanda. The School of Arts dissolved and was replaced by Instituto Superior de Ciências da Educação (ISCED), a school essentially designed for training secondary school teachers. In 1985, the Universidade de Angola was renamed after the first president of the republic: Universidade Agostinho Neto (Agostinho Neto University). From independence until 1999, UAN remained Angola’s only university. Six additional institutions were created after 1999, all of them private. In 1999, the Catholic church launched Angola’s first private university, the Universidade Católica de Angola (UCAN), whose president is also the Archbishop of Luanda. UCAN initially began offering degrees in law and economics (including management). The current programs include the School of Human Science (languages, literature, and administration), the School of Engineering (including computer engineering), and theology.

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Higher education institutions are now found in 10 of the 18 Angolan provinces. An estimated 35,000 students are enrolled across all higher education institutions, with 25,000 of these students at UAN (MED, 2005). The Ministry of Education also reports that during the 2004–2005 academic year, UAN had 1,239 faculty, of whom 1,101 (approximately 89%) were nationals, with the remaining 138 expatriates. The majority of the national faculty have a licenciatura degree (around 55%), with only 15% having a doctorate. Only 25% of the lecturers are part-time. In the same period, the number of nonteaching staff at UAN was 1,273, of whom 596 (46.8%) were female (UNESCO–Angola, 2006). Since colonial times, education in Angola always served to create and preserve social differences and to consolidate social relations of domination. This is particularly evident for higher education. Until independence, the vast majority of the students in higher education were Portuguese or their descendants. In 1974, only an estimated 5% were of other origins. Today, students who attend higher education are those who can pay fees, even at the public institutions. Fees may cost around $300 U.S., yet a public employee earns on average a salary of only around $150 to $200 U.S. per month. The Crisis in Higher Education Angola’s higher education system is part of an upside-down pyramid representing the entire educational system. Ninety percent of Angola’s students are enrolled at the elementary level, with 9% in secondary school and only 1% in higher education. Angola enrolls 2% fewer of its students in higher education as compared to the other members of the SADC (Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi). Even though these members of the SADC are markedly poorer than Angola, they have 3% of their student population at the university as compared to Angola’s 1%. In 2005–2006, the Angolan Ministry of Education recognized seven (two public, five private) government-approved institutions in the country. The Ministry warned prospective students against enrolling at private institutions not recognized by the government (World Education News and Reviews, 2010). UAN and the Institute of International Relations are the two public institutions authorized to offer university degrees. The officially recognized private institutions are the Catholic university (UCAN), Jean Piaget University of Angola, Universidade Lusíada de Angola, Universidade Privada de Angola, and the Independent University of Angola. Most of these higher education institutions are concentrated in Luanda, the capital. In 2005, there were approximately 20 higher education institutions seeking approval through the Ministry of Education to start functioning in Angola. Only one of these applications was outside of Luanda, in the Province of Huíla (MED, 2005). Since 2009, the only public university in

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Angola, UAN, is no longer alone. A new law (Decree no.5/09, April 7) has reorganized the higher education system by expanding UAN and creating six new and autonomous public institutions within the regional and provincial levels. How these new institutions will develop sufficient human resources to operate a university remains a huge challenge for the country. The challenges for the Ministry of Education extend beyond simply creating a higher education facility in an outlying province. To successfully develop a new institution, the Ministry must gain the political and cultural approval of the provincial government. The proposal for a new institution may be developed as a national or international project for the betterment of the local province. In this regard, the Ministry and its officials must rely on the provincial government to be the interpreters of the local population and to help express the Ministry’s desire of the necessity to prepare better trained young people in the province and expand their educational possibilities. Although not unique to Angola, Angolan higher education faces a number of key issues, characterized as follows: 1

Inadequate capacity: Due to the increased demand for higher education, institutions are rushing illusory and inadequate proposals to create new programs, courses, and new universities, with little consideration of quality or the reality of the new proposals. Some higher education institutions have students but poor material conditions, whereas others have good material conditions but no students; or else, some of the recently created institutions do not have adequate teachers. 2 Lack of system management and administration: Until 1999, there was essentially no federal oversight or administration of the higher education system. With only one university, UAN, there was little need for a university management system. Government legislation and other regulatory norms were considered sufficient to operate the one national university. Today, however, with seven higher education institutions, the regulatory and normative instruments are inadequate for the Ministry of Education to manage the financial and educational needs of higher education.   One of the main problems facing higher education in Angola since independence has been frequent political interference. For example, the ruling party intervened, formally or informally, in the hiring and firing of each member of the national university faculty. University appointments were strongly affected by Angola’s affiliation with Cuba and the Soviet Union. The political changes introduced since the early 1990s, however, led to profound transformations from the prior political situation. In 1995, governmental intrusion was altered when legislation created institutional autonomy that ended the MPLA’s control of the Ministry of Education. The university introduced a system of internal

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democracy that guaranteed free elections of all positions, committees, and officeholders by the faculty. Appointment to the faculty was guaranteed by a selection process based exclusively on academic merit rather than party affiliation. 3 Financing higher education: Associated with lack of administrative oversight is the inability of the Ministry of Education to understand the financial needs of institutions to allocate the scarce resources available for higher education. Existing information that ultimately reaches the Ministry of Education is not clear and is insufficient to effectively plan for the funding, maintenance, and quality assurance of the higher education system. Information on the source and nature of financing and the allocation of money available in each institution is not under control of the Ministry of Education or the ministries of finance and planning.   The financial resources of higher education have four origins: the state budget, student fees, contributions from private and international donor organizations, and paid services to individual or corporate users. The public university in Angola depends overwhelmingly on funding from the state budget. The capital budget is granted by the Ministry of Education and administered by the university, but it does not provide funds for research. As we discuss further, the lack of support for research offers a clear indication of the low value placed on the creation of knowledge for national benefit. In our earlier work, we noted that the contribution of higher education to local knowledge is often a highly contested, and frequently misunderstood, apparatus the state has at its disposal (Kempner & Jurema, 1999). Rather than viewing higher education as “compensation,” an alternative view for the state is the contribution higher education can make toward furthering economic development by fostering the growth of indigenous knowledge and expertise through local research. Relying on the state to serve the best interests of all society is always risky, however. Gramsci’s (1971) theory that the state is a combination of coercion and hegemony of one group’s ideology alerts us to the dangers of expecting the state to use higher education for the benefit of the public good. 4 Curricula: As finance and planning is out of control for the Ministry of Education, the same is true for approval, monitoring, and quality assurance of institutional curricula. According to existing norms, the Ministry of Education should approve an institution’s programs and curricula. After initial approval, however, there is no evaluation or accreditation process to ensure that the approved changes are implemented in accordance with legislative and ministry policies.   Not surprisingly, there is a tendency for institutions to offer courses that are easier to develop and less expensive, while at the same time

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attracting students wanting an equally easier degree. For this reason, programs appear throughout the country with no official recognition, disregarding the Ministry’s authority. The creation of such easily developed programs is not in the nation’s best interests. These programs tend to be of low quality and not focused on specialized professional areas actually needed for national development. For example, even after 35 years of independence with a petroleum-based economy, there is still no internal capacity to prepare people for professional and scientific positions in the petroleum industry. The petroleum funds have not enhanced the internal capacity in these strategic areas. 5 Faculty and staff: Linked to inadequate resources for facilities is the lack of funding to support a sufficient number and quality of teaching faculty and staff. There are not enough teachers for the existing number of higher education institutions. Not only is there an insufficient supply of well-educated faculty, the majority of teachers lecturing at private higher education institutions are from UAN and, therefore, do not have sufficient time for lecturing and research in their home institution. 6 Students: The number of students attending higher education institutions is relatively small for a nation the size of Angola and much lower than is needed to become a more fully developed nation. Considering the needs of the country for trained technicians, the number of Angolans graduating from the university is insufficient by approximately five times the need (MED, 2005, p. 19). Of those students who do attend higher education institutions, the drop-out rate is quite high; 32% are gone after the first year, 26% by the second, 20% in the third year, 15% in the fourth, and 7% more by the fifth (MED, 2005, p. 3). The available spaces for students in higher education is also quite limited and far under capacity. Some 41,000 Angolans cannot be admitted to a higher education institution; approximately 71–78% of those seeking admission are denied (MED, 2005, pp. 3–4). The overall picture in Angolan higher education is that the open places in institutions are highly sought. There is an insufficient number of places to absorb demand, and those students who do gain admission drop out at high rates.   Furthermore, many students currently enrolled in higher education do not meet the established requirements set by the Ministry of Education. It is not unusual for students to enroll in institutions with forged documentation (UNESCO–Angola, 2006). 7 Research: Prior to 1997, the investment in scientific research was low. Research was held in low esteem, resulting in the absence of a tradition of research and almost a total absence of links between university teaching and research. This lack of connection is well illustrated by several cases of teaching staff who have reached the highest hierarchical level as professors without ever having carried out research. Self-evaluations

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by UAN paint a somber picture of minimal research activity, owing to a lack of laboratories and research centers, financial resources, and stimuli for research in the legal statutes.   Higher education in Angola continues to neglect both actual research and the creation of research competence. Three points offer a summary of the place of research in higher education: • • •

The relevance and irrelevance, as well as low quality, of the courses and degrees offered do not answer or cover the demands that national development requires. The number of undergraduates is far below the needs of the country. Of all students entering higher education, only 5–20% reach the fifth and last year of studies. There is a complete lack of evaluation mechanisms regarding academic quality in Angolan higher education. This absence of quality assurance provides little consideration of pedagogical objectives attained, the scientific content and learning methodologies chosen, and the output and practices of the overall learning objectives at all higher education institutions.

Higher Education and the Public Sphere Given the context of enormous economic, political, and social problems, what, if any, role does higher education play as a public sphere in Angola? What role should higher education play with so many other competing social priorities? And what are the major factors preventing higher education from assuming this role as a public sphere? From our historical research, review of data, and discussions with Angolan academics, we have found three major factors impede higher education’s role as a public sphere: (1) the social, public, and cultural role of the university; (2) student access to higher education; and (3) lack of Angolan teachers to supply the professional needs of higher education institutions. To further consider these questions regarding the role of higher education, we consulted with and interviewed Angolan academics to hear their concerns and perspectives on the effect these major factors have on the place of higher education in national development. Because of the contested and contradictory nature of higher education, however, not all academics are comfortable talking to outsiders or even to one another. Between the colonial legacy and practically one-party rule, Angola has not been an open democratic society and, accordingly, not all faculty wanted to engage in discussions or to be interviewed. Nevertheless, even with this political reality, we managed to speak with and interview some faculty members in Angola. The professors we interviewed taught both at private and public

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universities in the social sciences, humanities, and technological areas. Some studied abroad in former and current Communist countries. According to one of the professors, the role of the universities in Angola is a determinant of the country’s development. This perspective is that UAN has been crucial in preparing people: “the country requires well prepared men [sic] in order to maintain the public function working efficiently.” He explained further that these past years the government has invested in training people. An example is the National School for Administration: “[T]he State has seen the necessity to potentialize and reinforce the public main-oeuvre. There are many people today working for the public function.” Studying here in Angola means social mobility, according to another professor. He explained further that a whole generation of university teachers went to Communist countries (mainly Cuba, the Soviet Union, and Eastern Germany). In the late 1970s, the state invested a relatively large amount in higher education by sending people outside the country with full scholarships. The state wanted to extend higher education training to everyone without regard to social class or tribal origins. (One professor is an example, as he went from his little aldeia in the bushes to Moscow, directly.) In the 1990s, with the deepening of the civil war, support from the federal government fell drastically, as did sponsorship from the Communist countries who were facing their own troubles. In consideration of the situation today for higher education, one professor explained that university students still “come from all social classes in the context of the public university [while] the private ones are more likely to receive those who have money. Today is not enough anymore to have someone open the door, it is necessary to have the right training.” An unstated comment by this professor, and supported in interviews with other faculty, is that belonging to the dominant political party, the MPLA, is the most important criterion for determining who has easier access to public higher education institutions. Those who are not members of the party are ostracized from full participation in the public sphere. According to this professor, tribalism is of less concern than in the past. He noted: “[N]obody pays attention…we are all equal.” He sees the “main difficulties are the lack of material conditions, lack of well-trained teachers” and the need for students to have a “thirst to learn.” Yet another professor we interviewed explained that the role of higher education is to “furnish trained people to fulfill the market at the national level. And it has accomplished this role. Every year there are new human technical resources coming out from higher education. This has been its essential role.” She explained additionally that Angola has had “some difficulties” because there are not enough Angolan specialists to teach at the universities. “Sometimes it is necessary to hire foreigners to fill in the

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blanks. Equipment we can buy; the problem is who is going to work with the equipment: the specialists?” According to this professor, “[T]he president of the public university (Reitor) has some political power because the university is not independent from the state. It is not enough only to have a good curriculum, it is necessary to have worked (militância) for the party in power (MPLA). The Reitor has to be approved by the Party.” She explained that, previously, the Reitor was elected, but all the new Reitores and provosts for the new public higher education institutions, created by decree in 2009, have been appointed by the president and the Minister of Education. When asked about student access to higher education, this professor explained: The public university is open to all kind of students, if they are prepared. Even if they come from the bushes, from the provinces, there are no restrictions. Right after independence there were a lot of opportunities, with real chance for people of all social classes. They had scholarships. Now to get a scholarship it is difficult. They look more for quality. The university here does not follow any African model. The system is close to the Portuguese one, influenced by the colonialism. In order to do graduate studies people usually look for countries depending on their field of study and language abilities. It can be France, Holland, but they usually go to Brazil, Portugal, Spain and Cuba (mainly educators). In order to get scholarships they need to “pray on the catechism of the party: god needs to come down from the heavens to you.”

Conclusion We propose that three major factors are impeding Angolan higher education as a public sphere: the role of the university, student access, and lack of trained Angolan academics. As we have looked more deeply into the infrastructure, other impeding issues include, of course, lack of resources, leadership, and an overall infrastructure for pedagogy and research. These problems are not unique to Africa or what are conventionally termed developing countries. The unique circumstances for Angola, however, include its colonization by the Portuguese, alignment with the Soviet Union, and internal political conflicts and war. Entry into the global economic and intellectual markets has also been hindered by the neoliberal policies imposed by the prevailing multilateral institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. From our investigation and analysis of the circumstances of higher education, our study suggests the need for educators and other political and cultural actors to articulate the purpose and meaning of higher education for a country such as Angola to seek a route to national development.

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Higher education’s role in a democratic public sphere is a place where teaching should not be confused with either training or propaganda. Higher education should offer a safe space where reason, understanding, dialogue, and critical engagement are available to faculty and students to open ideas and debate for the larger society. We found, however, such openness and engagement is far from the case in Angola. By shedding light on the Angolan higher education system, we have introduced, as Giroux (2003) wisely notes, a “concrete reminder that the struggle for democracy is, in part, an attempt to liberate humanity from the blind obedience to authority and that individual and social agency gain meaning primarily through the freedoms guaranteed by the public sphere” (p. 57). The Angolan higher education system still lives in a disabled democratic and highly contested political environment. Conditions do not currently exist to create a sound democratic role for higher education as a public sphere or for higher education to provide public goods and create safe public spaces. Quite the reverse is true today for higher education in Angola. The prevailing political regime has concentrated its resources and political efforts in building a functional and commodified system to replicate a model of academic capitalism. Higher education for Angola’s political elite is conceived and implemented as an academic commodity to be bargained and consumed by the public. Angolan higher education is not a producer of knowledge but a consumer of the academic commodities and services produced by other countries. This places Angolan higher education in the role of profit bidding, needing to purchase educational consumer goods and services produced elsewhere. This position as a profit bidder means that Angolan higher education must purchase academic goods and services at prices, models, and shapes set by the international market. Angolan higher education is in a subservient position as a profit bidder that prevents it from participating as or becoming a public sphere. Neither teachers nor students have the opportunity to connect their learning or research to the greater society in public dialogue. Angolan higher education is not responding to the promise it holds to assist its own development and to become engaged as a public sphere. Relying on the state to support the public good through higher education will continue to be problematic in Angola unless educators and policymakers question the motives of the state in its use and support of higher education. Since education is an apparatus of the state (Althusser, 1971), how the state employs higher education to serve the greater needs of society remains a critical concern for Angola. Higher education is in a unique position to produce knowledge, intellectuals, and policies that mediate the effects of colonialism and war in Angola, to “dream,” as Giroux (1992) proposes, a “better future” and a “new world” (p. 92). Our hope is that others will be added to the voices we have included here, to provide a greater understanding

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of the place and role of higher education as a public sphere both in Angola and in other emerging nations.

References Althusser, L. (1971). Lenin and philosophy and other essays. New York: Monthly Review Press. Carnoy, M., & Levin, H. M. (1984). Schooling and work in the democratic state. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Carnoy, M., & Samoff, J. (1990). Education and social transition in the third world. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Chauí, M. (1999). A universidade em ruínas. In H. Trindade (Ed.), Universidade em ruínas na República dos professores. Petrópolis, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil: Editora Vozes RJ, pp. 211–222. Giroux, H. A. (1992). Border crossings: Cultural workers and the politics of education. New York: Routledge. Giroux, H. A. (2003). Public spaces/private lives: Democracy beyond 9/11. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Gramsci, A. (1971). Selections from the prison notebooks. London: Lawrence & Wishart. Habermas, J. (1989/1962). The structural transformation of the public sphere: An inquiry into a category of bourgeois society (trans. T. Burger, with the assistance of F. Lawrence). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. (Original work published 1962.) Johnston, A. (1990). The Mozambican state and education. In M. Carnoy & J. Samoff (Eds.), Education and social transition in the third world. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Kempner, K. (1994). Constructing knowledge in Brazilian universities: Case studies of faculty research. Studies in Higher Education, 19 (3), 281–293. Kempner, K., & Jurema, A. (1999). On becoming a well-behaved economy: The case of Brazilian education. Prospects, 29 (1), 106–120. Ministério de Educação (MED). (2005, December 5). Linhas mestras para a melhoria do subsistema do ensino superior. Luanda, Angola: Ministério de Educação. Morrow, R. A., & Torres, C. A. (1995). Social theory and education: A critique of theories of social and cultural reproduction. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Programa Geral do Governo. (2005–2006). Programa geral do governo for the biennium 2005–2006. Luanda, Angola: Government of Angola. Rifkin, J. (1995). The end of work: The decline of the global labor force and the dawn of the post-market era. New York: Putnam. Slaughter, S., & Leslie, L. L. (1997). Academic capitalism: Politics, policies and the entrepreneurial university. London: Johns Hopkins University Press. Slaughter, S., & Rhoades, G. (2009). Academic capitalism and the new economy: Markets, state, and higher education. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. South African Development Communities (SADC). (n.d.). Sub-regional progress report on the implementation of the United Nations convention to combat desertification in Southern Africa. Report prepared for consideration by the committee for the review of the implementation of the convention, Maseru, Lesotho.

Higher Education and the Public Sphere in Angola  •  177 Teferra, D., & Altbach, P. B. (2004). African higher education: Challenges for the 21st century. Higher Education, 47 (1), 21–50. UNESCO–Angola. (2006). National Education Support Strategy (UNESS) 2006– 2015. The Government of Angola (draft 30, August 2006), Angola Macroeconomic and Education Statistical Profile, revised March 2008. Uusihakala, J., Jurema, A., & Pedium Education Consultants and Capacity Trust. (2008). Evaluation of Capacity Building for Education for All (Cap-EFA). Final Report. Internal Oversight Service, Evaluation Section. UNESCO. Retrieved March 16, 2010, from http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0016/001610/161085E.pdf Vemba, S., Gomes, M., & Miguel, A. (2009). Ensino Superior en Angola, No. 64, April 10, 2009, 2–5. World Bank. (2005). Interim strategy note for the Republic of Angola, January. World Bank. (2008). Macrobrief: ANGOLA—December 2008 [Powerpoint slides]. Luanda, Angola. World Bank (2009). Angola. Retrieved from http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/ EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/AFRICAEXT/ANGOLAEXTN/0,,menuPK:322496~ pagePK:141159~piPK:141110~theSitePK:322490,00.html World Education News and Reviews. (2010). 18 (4). Retrieved May 6, 2010, from http://www.wes.org/ewenr/05july/africa.htm

11

Selling Out Academia? Higher Education, Economic Crises, and Freire’s Generative Themes

Greg William Misiaszek, Lauren Ila Jones, and Carlos Alberto Torres

Globalization and Neoliberalism Neoliberal globalization, the most prominent model of globalization, has deeply affected the university in the context of academic capitalism (Slaughter & Leslie, 1997; Torres, in press, 2009b; van Heertum, Olmos, & Torres, 2010). Rhoades and Slaughter have defined academic capitalism as a pattern of increasing pressures on colleges and universities to generate revenue through various partnerships with the private sector. Thus, academic capitalism is a regime of power that can be seen through the analysis of federal patent and copyright policies, and federal policies and programs that support academic research (Rhoades & Slaughter, 2006). Though this market-based regime of power does not appear initially to concern itself with access, equity, equality, or quality of higher education, as they would seem to fall outside of neoliberalism’s market orientation, critical scholars have suggested that market forces challenge every aspect of higher education. Morrow (2006) argues that neoliberalism has shaped institutions of higher education in essential ways: The great benefactor of the desacralization of the university as a cultural institution has been the increasing penetration of market forces into higher education and the reorganization of university governance 179

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around ‘playing the game’ of academic capitalism…. In this context the market becomes the Trojan horse for undermining academic autonomy by ostensibly nonideological and noncoercive means based on the interest of the ‘consumers’ of education and research. (pp. xxv–xxvii) Neoliberalism promotes open markets, free trade, reduction of the public sector, decreased state intervention in the economy, and the deregulation of markets (Chomsky, 2006; Rhoads, Torres, & Brewster, 2005; Stromquist, 2002). Such premises of neoliberal restructuring as the reduction of public spending by cutting programs considered to be wasteful, the sale of state enterprises to private ones, and the enactment of deregulatory mechanisms to prevent state intervention in the business world have been increasingly criticized, particularly after the crash of 2008. We argue that these dynamics between the academy and economic crises are often driven by political action and that they exacerbate social inequalities. With less public funding directed toward higher education, the college-going aspirations of low-income students and underrepresented populations are more frequently neglected. Cutting funding for those in groups with lower socioeconomic status leads to reduced educational access and increased debt.

Politics, Economics, and Higher Education in California California serves as a useful lens for the analysis of the relationship between economic crisis and higher education, as the state’s postsecondary access policy is multi-faceted and contested. State ballot propositions related to educational access have often brought these tensions into focus. One such example is Proposition 187, a ballot measure passed in California in 1994. One portion of the initiative would have denied access to higher education for undocumented individuals, those without legal residency under then current law. The measure was overturned in 1999. Similarly, the passage of Proposition 209 in 19961 made it illegal for state institutions, including institutions of higher education, to consider race, gender, and ethnicity in state hiring and university admissions policies. The law created barriers for postsecondary access by students of color and for women, but did not affect some other preferences, such as those established for military veterans. Spending on higher education has also been affected by the passage of ballot initiatives. Proposition 13 in 1978, put a limit on property taxes, a key source of revenue for educational institutions in California. As a result, spending on California higher education since the passage of Proposition 13 has often exceeded income generated, causing postsecondary institutions to consistently seek tuition increases (Schrag, 1998). Though the California Master Plan for Higher Education was passed in 1960, it must be contextualized

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within Ronald Reagan’s two terms as governor of California from 1967 to1975. Along with his successful effort to remove University of California (UC) President Clark Kerr from the highest leadership position in the UC system, during his tenure as governor, Reagan proceeded to cut spending for higher education and imposed the system’s first educational fees for attendance. His legacy thus serves as one driver of the challenges that higher education in California has faced in light of political and economic turmoil. More recently, debates over access to California higher education have included increased blame of immigration and multiculturalism for alleged declines in the quality of California’s system of education. The challenge to immigration is often cited as a justification for decreasing postsecondary support for many individuals who are not themselves recent immigrants (Torres, 1998). There have also been a series of legislative proposals in California (and other states) that would decrease the ability of students with economic hardship to attend college (Olivas, 2009). Another example are the systematic challenges facing undocumented immigrants seeking to attend colleges and universities in California. Undocumented immigrants have the right to attend primary and secondary school in the state but are constrained after high school by regulations that reduce their eligibility for in-state residency fees or to receive financial aid (Olivas, 2009). Enrolling in college could be improved for the thousands of students who are denied financial aid because of their undocumented immigration status by the passage of the DREAM Act (Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minor). The DREAM Act is a bipartisan effort that would give qualified undocumented students temporary permanent residency (along with a path to U.S. citizenship). This would also make them eligible for financial aid, considerably increasing their chances of achieving a university education2 (dreamact.info). However, Congress was unwilling to pass the Dream Act at the end of 2010. With the House of Representatives now under Republican control, the prospects for passage in the next Congress would seem to be considerably diminished. California has been one of the states hardest hit by the economic crisis, with up to 18,000 teachers facing layoffs in 2010 owing to a $20 billion state budget shortfall and a nearly 30% unemployment rate in some parts of the state (Henderson, 2010)3. Owing to the economic crisis, which has caused the state of California to be unable to meet its fiscal obligations to higher education, and to the impact of neoliberal policies, it is not clear whether California can meet goals for access that date to the passage of the California Master Plan passed in 1960 (Douglass, 2000). After the announcement of proposed new fee increases in early March 2010, there were protests across the UC system and throughout the nation as part of a Day of Action, including more than 100 events in 30 states (Henderson, 2010). These protests, and others like them, underscore

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tensions between what California promises and what is actually happening in California higher education. And the financial situation worsened. The recent budget proposal of recently-elected Governor Jerry Brown calls for a targeted reduction of $500 million to the UC for the year 2011–2012, $500 million of targeted reduction to the California State System, and significant reductions in the community college system plus an increase in its students fees. This is disturbing news for academic administrators. For instance, the UC president’s open letter to California, January 10, 2011, declares: This is a sad day for California. In the budget proposed by Gov. Brown, the collective tuition payments made by University of California students for the first time in history would exceed what the state contributes to the system’s general fund. The crossing of this threshold transcends mere symbolism and should be profoundly disturbing to all Californians. (Yudof, 2011) Though it is widely recognized that students of color are disproportionately lower-income student, who are consequently more deeply affected by fee hikes, the step preceding financing a university education—getting accepted into a university—has also become an increasingly unequal process. As one example, the crisis of Black student enrollment at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) came to a head in the fall of 2006. In that year, more than 10,000 Black students graduated from high school in Los Angeles County, yet only 96 of them entered UCLA as freshmen (Korry, 2006). Situated near one of the largest Black communities in the country, UCLA’s enrollments of Black students had dropped to one of its lowest levels in 30 years. Providing access to higher education for students of color and undocumented students is viewed more often as charity rather than fulfillment of their right to higher education (Giroux, 1996; Yancy, 2004). The persistent challenges to access by these students are evidenced in the passage of Proposition 209, by the legal obstacles to access for undocumented citizens, and by the challenges faced by the UC in its efforts to build diverse student bodies. All of these issues are given lower priority during an economic crisis owing to the overarching political and public policy focus on economic recovery. The challenges to access for students of color and undocumented students under economic crisis in California are reminiscent of persistent challenges in other global contexts. It is to those challenges we now turn.

Beyond the United States: Some Historical Implications of Economic Crisis Apple (2001) argues that even before the onset of neoliberal globalization in the early 1980s, there were attacks on the welfare state. In the United

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States beginning in the 1970s, the legitimacy of the welfare state came under “severe attack” owing to a deepening fiscal crisis as “competition over scarce economic, political, and cultural resources grew more heated” (Apple, 2006, p. 179). That attack had implications for higher education. Neoliberal and neoconservative critiques of the state were often centered on “public schooling and the teaching and curricula found within it” (Apple, 2001, p. 2001). This was also true in other national contexts. The Latin American economic crisis that ensued from the 1982 debt crisis led to structural adjustment and “economic stabilization” programs initiated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank (Boron, 1992, p. 151). After the crisis, the financial situation of public universities radically worsened. The lack of investment in higher education in Latin America and the Caribbean (the region has the smallest amount of money invested for each student in the tertiary level per year (Boron, 2006) was compounded, not only by overall societal income disparity but by the fact that governmental investment in higher education is the bulk of overall university budgets of the region’s countries (Boron, 2006). More recently, the Argentine economic crisis of 2001 occurred under the direction of the IMF, which many scholars claim exacerbated the conflict by forcing debt reductions, cutbacks in social programs, the privatization of state enterprises, and the deregulation of commerce (Rhoads, Torres, & Brewster, 2005, p. 175). Brazil’s election of Lula in 2002 demonstrated the country’s “condemnation of neoliberal globalization” and made a statement “about the centrality of labor” (Torres & Rhoads, 2005) in a country that has also faced trying economic times. Programa Universidade Para Todos (Prouni, The “University for All” Program) began nationally in Brazil in 2004 with the goal of providing scholarships for private education to students graduating from secondary schools. In the case of Brazil, this has led to a private sector that has succeeded in bringing, and can continue to bring, a rapid increase in enrollment … however, this is not an equitable expansion, since students of lower socio-economic background are for the most part confined to courses of lower quality of lower subsequent value. [Speaking about Prouni] … government interventions such as student loans [and the proposed Prouni] can increase access for lower-income students, but they do so in a limited way and cannot be the basis of successful longterm policy… Measures to increase efficiency must be accompanied by an increase in total funds to counterbalance the neglect of the system in the past decade and allow for an expansion with quality. (McCowen, p. 593) Both Brazil and Argentina have “face[ed] massive debt and major political change and are home to some of the most powerful grassroots globalization

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movements in the world” (Torres & Rhoads, 2005, p. 24). Thus, Brazilian and Argentine universities “caught in the struggle between bottom-up and topdown global movements…face the challenge of reform in a context that has become highly contentious and politicized” (Torres & Rhoads, 2005, p. 25). Worldwide, hegemony has defined funding and structure. The World Bank invests about 0.5% in education in developing countries and insists that the focus must be “advice, designed to help governments develop education policies suitable for the circumstances of their countries” (Arnove & Torres, 2003, p. 65). There has been an increased reliance on foreign funds’ seeing “the finance ministry as their ally in reducing spending, in contrast with, say, health or education ministries, whose general mandate requires them to be more concerned with spending than with saving,” (Samoff, 2003, p. 65). The trend of Americanization (or Westernization) within the world’s higher education systems has intensified the private sector’s influence of learning and research within their towers (Schugurensky, 2003, p. 297). In Southeast Asia, confrontation with countries’ colonial pasts and with trends toward fundamentalism has also been amplified during past economic crises. Already established contradictory expectations are furthered in times of crisis in these countries. For example, ties to its colonial history remain, as reflected in the fact that the Malaysian education system still bears the distinctive marks of the country’s postcolonial confidence … evident, in ways that are contradictory, in its nationalist sentiment, with its emphasis on the teaching of the Malay language and culture, and especially Islam on one hand, and its championing of the principles of global capitalism on the other. (Rizvi, 2000, p. 211) After the economic crisis in 1997, the country’s pragmatism has been tested by “the cultural changes brought about by globalization, on the one hand, and the emergence of a backlash Islamic fundamentalism on the other” (Rizvi, 2000, p. 211). To come out of the crisis, universities have become more corporatized, and both local campuses and branches of overseas private universities have been allowed to be established. Education had become de-democratized, molded to international economic interests rather than to local interests of the people. Although there was an increase in access to higher education, “it also created an educational market in which there are major concerns about quality control, cultural relevance, and equality of opportunity” (Rizvi, 2000, p. 213). Yet, crisis has also contributed to resistance. Comparable to the external interventions in Latin America, the 1997 economic crisis in Thailand and subsequent IMF intervention caused upheaval for everyone from immigrant workers to middle-class youths (Luke & Luke, 2000). During this time, in

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the face of a federal government push for the “hallmarks of educational modernity” (which included “standardized and commodified curriculum” and privatization of higher education), these new conditions “had also generated new alliances and partnerships in pursuit of solving complex problems….ones that did not necessarily entail the superimposition of technocratic, progressivist, or neoliberal educational solutions on local and Indigenous contexts” (Luke & Luke, 2000).

The World Social Forum Confronting Corporate Capitalism and Neoliberal Ideology: Implications for Higher Education By connecting resistance movements worldwide, the World Social Forum (WSF) has continued to strengthen as a space for reflection on the economic disparity that has advanced deeper into the historically affected Third World and more deeply into Fourth World contexts. Since its inception in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 2001, the Forum’s process has taken on many different forms: centralized, polycentric across three continents, a series of year-round events, and regional forums. These spaces of debate, reflection, creation of proposals, and exchange of ideas in opposition to neoliberalism, capitalism, and any form of imperialism4 have historically met in January to counter the World Economic Forum in Davos. Complexities of the dynamics between governmental organizations (such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, nongovernmental organizations, and popular movements) are visible. As part of an international series of events, 20,000 people are expected to attend the U.S. Social Forum (USSF) in Detroit.5 As Detroit has the highest unemployment rate of any city in the United States—23.2% in March 2010—it is a “harbinger” for what the organizers see as what must be done in communities across the country.6 The following four beliefs of the organizers are particularly notable in terms of the issues described in this section:7 •

•

•

…[T]hat there is a strategic need to unite the struggles of oppressed communities and peoples within the United States (particularly Black, Latino, Asian/Pacific-Islander and Indigenous communities) to the struggles of oppressed nations in the Third World. …[T]hat the USSF should place the highest priority on groups that are actually doing grassroots organizing with working class people of color, who are training organizers, building long-term structures of resistance, and who can work well with other groups, seeing their participation in USSF as building the whole, not just their part of it. …[T]hat the USSF must create space for the full and equal participation of undocumented migrants and their communities.

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•

…[T]hat the USSF should link US-based youth organizers, activists, and cultural workers to the struggles of their brothers and sisters abroad, drawing common connections and exploring the deeper meanings of solidarity.

What are the implications for higher education? First and foremost, the WSF represents a transnational networking of social movements, hence moving the struggle beyond national borders. The implications for higher education are that through distance education and the localization of campuses in foreign lands, many of the universities in the developed world have inserted themselves into the dynamics of political confrontation in the developing world. Second, the WSF, particularly through the initiative of Portuguese sociologist Boaventura de Souza Santos, has created a university of the social movements, hence producing a plurality of alternatives to traditional higher education institutions. Finally, one may resort to the tradition of popular education and the work of Paulo Freire to imagine options for the revitalization of higher education at a time of crises. The same notion of generative themes, used in the region for a long time to address and assess the needs of individuals and communities, could be very handy for understanding the possibility of reorganizing and reimagining higher education at a time of crisis.

Reinventing Higher Education Through Freirean Generative Themes The neoliberal framework has a narrow view of learning as a means of economic gain rather than as a tool for enlightenment and social transformation. When used as primarily a tool for improving economics that sustain and increase hegemony, education develops “limit situations” because economics become the measurement of its quality. By limiting access and equality because of the perceived need to increase profits, education constructs a sense of fatalism in which commodified knowledge is the limited situation rather than knowledge for transforming society being given value (Freire, 1985). The generative themes applied to higher education by Rhoads and Torres (2006) follow the Freirean practice of developing themes through cultural synthesis, or thematic investigation (Fig. 11.1). The goal of contrasting these themes is for people to “critically construct self-reflection and selfappraisal … presenting their own objective reality (how and where they are) as in problem solving” (Freire, 1985, p. 33). Reading and rereading the world through these generative themes allows for critically and creatively developed actions through the lenses of “limit situations” or “untested feasibility” situations toward possible utopias, which oppose the sense of fatalism (Freire, 1992). They form the basis for solutions and alternatives

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to neoliberal globalizations in higher education, yet we do not attempt to become prescriptive but to show theoretical and practical alternatives to be explored in dialogue and activism with institutions of higher education. Freedom Is Emancipation, Not Tutelage Freire concords with Dewey’s belief that education and society cannot exist separately (Dewey, 1963). Dewey stated that learning spaces should be a reflection of a democratized society wherein individual and collective interests are valued and on which education is based. A democracy should be a true collective construct formed by the individuals who make up the society. Democratic societies should encourage all their citizens to critically analyze what is best for themselves and their society with efficacy and empathy, allowing everyone to have a voice for their thoughts and to develop praxis toward their constructed possible utopias.8 In essence, participatory democracy is essential for society inside and outside the academy. Higher education classrooms should be spaces for students to develop and critically challenge their own ingenuous goals for society. In addition, the public sphere should benefit from the contributions of public and nonprofit private higher education institutions. Hahnel concluded that the term economic justice “should be defined as reward commensurate with sacrifice, and economic democracy should be defined as decision-making power in proportion to the degree affected” (Hahnel, 2005, p. 4). Hahnel insisted that economic and democratic justice cannot be separated to give Antihegemonic Globalization

Freedom is Emancipation, Not Tutelage

Challenging, defying and demystifying the techocratic approach of the social sciences (particularly economics).

Redemocratizing democracy by decreasing representative democracy and increasing participatory democracy. Developing dialogue between popular education and scientific knowledge. Incorporation of the masses into higher education.

Planetarian Multicultural Citizenship

Teaching towards a cosmopolitan democracy based on planetary multiculturalism which increases understanding and respect for multiple cultures and the connection between human and ecological conflict.

Figure 11.1  Generative themes

Defense of Public Higher Education

Robust defense of public higher education (access, equality, quality, etc.) and ideals of democracy.

Defense of the Democratic State

1) Sufficiently funding public services by regulating global transactions 2) Regulating outsourcing to defend local markets 3) Ending the view of higher education as a financial service 4) Increased dialogue to end conflicts rather than through violence.

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people proper compensation for labor and participatory decision-making power over their life worlds. Given the fiscal crises of the state and the institutional crises of universities, any consideration of the relationships between higher education and global labor markets should first and foremost consider the implications for the university itself as a meaningful and sizable labor market. In other terms, with the growing deterioration of salary and working conditions in the university, even in advanced industrial societies, there is a strong chance that in the very near future we will see an increase in the unionization of graduate students and new forms of social, political, and economic representation of university professors, perhaps in the form of professorial unions. One new phenomenon in U.S. universities is the drive toward graduate student unionization as a post-industrial social movement (Rhoads & Rhoades, 2005). Rhoads and Rhoades examine the growing movement among graduate student employees in the United States to pursue collective bargaining. As they point out, the unionization of graduate student employees has been met with fairly stiff resistance from university administrators who have argued that graduate students more or less serve as apprentices and that the work they perform is part of their academic experience. As lowlevel wage earners in a corporate enterprise, graduate student organizers see collective bargaining as the logical response to an organization firmly entrenched in a business model of operation (Rhoads & Torres, 2005). The pressures for unionization of university professors are growing, considering the financial crises of universities and the growing managerialism that is affecting models of dual governance that prevail in many distinguished universities. This encompasses the tradition of a systematic, open and, to a large extent, honest dialogue between the academic senate and the administration regarding key teaching, research, administration, and evaluation policies. The relative autonomy of higher education, the importance of tenure as a keystone for the politics of teaching and inquiry in higher education, and the tradition of self-governed universities may slow down or even counteract this movement toward unionization. However, pressures mounting on the university by the rise of neoliberal “new public management” in the public sector and the consolidation of a managerial class in the university, and the widespread use of business models and market principles at least since the early eighties, have undermined the autonomy of the professoriate. In addition, the pressure to find measureable outcomes of university “products” and the growing pressure to create commodities through sales, services, inventions, patents, and the like by universities have affected the university and the way it is self-governed and operated. Thus, not surprisingly, many argue that if universities are becoming themselves capitalist enterprises, they should be subject to labor/management negotiations. In this context, the role of unions to defend the professoriate, administrative staff, and even graduate students/workers becomes key.9

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Anti-Hegemonic Globalization The processes of globalization have great implications for higher education. At a general level, some may argue that the impact of globalization on colleges and universities is both direct and indirect. One direct impact is the way nation-state economies are restructuring their systems of support for higher education as a consequence of shifting economic priorities and structural adjustment policies mandated from above. Some indirect effects include the manner by which the “war against terror” has come to limit academic freedom and the transnational flow of scholars and students, and the way in which academic culture at some Latin American universities is shifting from a collectivist orientation to ideas associated with individualism (Torres, 2006, p. 10). Globalization processes are coupled with attempts to infuse market logics into higher education, “undermining its mission as an independent source of knowledge and inquiry” (Torres & van Heertum, 2009, p. 155). The complex linkages between the causes and effects of globalizations in society, and hence education, develop a contested terrain between globalization from above and globalization from below. Processes from above inherently attempt to limit the effectiveness of universities as sites of contestation of global hegemony because these processes have an incentive to sustain hegemony. Increased entrepreneurialism in higher education, especially in the most economically developed countries, has “been led by efforts to expand revenue (or simply to replenish losses from decreasing state and federal support) through a variety of profit-seeking endeavors, including close collaboration with business in research, satellite campuses, and extension programs around the world” (Torres & van Heertum, 2009, p. 156). No Child Left Behind policies have infiltrated the academy and led to a decrease in autonomy by increasing accountability. This, in turn, increases homogeneity and standardization and disempowers professors and counter-hegemonic ideas. We argue that these policies develop a systematic suppression of critical thinking to counter neoliberal ideologies. Higher education is increasingly focused on training a workforce for global competition. Thus, accountability of professors’ teaching is measured through the ability to preserve the neoliberal definition of quality of education. Hegemony is strengthened by professorial disempowerment that inhibits teachers and instructors from critically teaching students and from conducting research on subjects that question the neoliberal establishment and “common sense.” Within an increasingly neoliberal globalized state, accountability in higher education does not necessarily increase quality of education. Defense of the Public Good in Higher Education Public higher education and private nonprofit higher education should generate and aid in generating and legitimizing knowledge isolated, as much

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as possible, from market influences. As privatization is a driving force of neoliberalism, “academic capitalism” is a natural outcome of the process implemented by universities and institutions of higher education in the last two or three decades. With fewer monetary resources for the state’s systems, economic crises increase discussion of the privatization of educational institutions to increase budget line items for other social systems (Au & Apple, 2010). A growing array of neoliberal and neoconservative beliefs view public institutions as fiscally wasteful and private entities as monetarily efficient (Apple, 2006). Even though it is the private sector in which the current economic crisis originated, educational systems are always seen as a major cause of the economic downturn. Although the state’s deregulation of the private sector is the main reason for the current downturn, neoliberals and neoconservatives demand the deregulation of education and research for the private sector to run more effectively. With the market dictating quality, failing schools are not recognized as a priority. Neoliberal globalization continues to limit “access and opportunity along class and racial lines, including limiting access to higher education through the imposition of higher tuition and reduced government support to institutions and individuals” (Torres & van Heertum, 2009, p. 156). In conclusion, we stress the main point of this section once again. Higher education must be seen as a right for all rather than a privilege for some. In Defense of the Democratic State Defending the democratic state is essential for all aspects of society and education. This generative theme is included because the state is a contested terrain within society, and public policy determines, to a large extent, how we interpret the world and act upon it. Alas, there exists conflict between agency and structure and the resistances to state policies. When universities determine their structure and actions according to the market, the voices of the students, the faculty, the staff, and the state’s population are silenced. Actions that increase monetary profit determine learning, teaching, knowledge production, and knowledge legitimization for the public sphere. With neoliberalism’s inception in academia, the quest for knowledge and truth becomes influenced by market-based priorities such as “defense” contracts for the military, exploitation of the environment, and the exploitation of labor by those who seek the lowest costs of production. Participatory democracy is an important priority in higher education to further social, economic, and environmental justice. Without participatory democracy within higher education, only those who benefit economically determine the structure of higher education. By introducing managerialism as a new form of institutional governance for higher education and enabling the mercantile function of the university via the commodification of knowledge and subjects of higher education,

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universities have deepened and magnified their crises. De Sousa Santos sees the university facing three pressing crises: the crisis of hegemony, the crisis of legitimacy, and the institutional crisis. The crisis of hegemony is the result of the growing intellectual deprivation of the university as it is increasingly called on to produce commercial knowledge at the expense of other forms of knowledge. The crisis of legitimacy is the result of the increasing segmentation of the university system and the growing devaluation of university diplomas. The institutional crisis of the university is the result of decreased support by the state and the erasure of the public benefit mission that universities, especially public ones, traditionally served. Concentrating on the institutional crisis serves only to exacerbate the problems of hegemony and legitimacy. A key point of Santos’s argument is that “the nature of university knowledge has been transformed from scientific knowledge into what he terms pluriversity knowledge. Pluriversity knowledge is application oriented and extramurally driven” (Torres, 2006, p. 28). These three pressing crises, all of which have been discussed at various points of this chapter, take control away from the public and give the hegemonic powers increased control of education. Planetarian Multicultural Citizenship Planetary and multicultural citizenship is developed from processes of globalization from below rather than from above. As stated previously, globalization is a contested terrain. There are many processes of globalization that have increased various types of justices with the aid of technological interventions such as improvements in communication and quicker, more accessible travel. Though these and other such factors are contested terrains in themselves, these technologies must be critically analyzed according to their use to determine “how emergent technologies and communities are interacting as tentative forms of self-determination and control from below (Kahn & Kellner, 2006). In an increasingly globalized world with growth of immigration and inclusion of cultures within the local, “… it is imperative to work toward a cosmopolitan democracy based on a planetarian multicultural citizenship” (Rhoads & Torres, 2005, p. 346). In a more interconnected world with geopolitical borders being less and less observed, a cosmopolitan democracy calls for an “expanding framework of democratic institution and procedures” (p. 276) to rethink relationships between the local and global for the following three reasons: (1) issues in which the global take control over the local;10 (2) the increase of local participatory democracy in global regulations; and (3) democratic redevelopment of organizations and agencies for inclusion of all those who are affected by local and global actions (Held, 1995). The ideals of cosmopolitan democracy must be evident in education to construct authentic

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self-awareness for critical and dialectic praxis toward increased justice. Higher education needs to teach respect and appreciation for other cultures beyond a student’s own culture and outside what can be learned through a framework of competition. The increase in the perceived need for competition during an economic crisis, such as the one currently faced by students in California, makes the request for a planetarian multicultural citizenship more relevant so injustices are not deepened. In other words, the perceived increased need for competition only further intensifies hegemony in the global, with the local becoming less and less in control of globalization processes. Another important aspect of planetary citizenship is that the planet itself (nature) is a citizen (Gadotti, 2008, 2009): The notion of (global) planetary citizenship is supported by a unifying view of the planet and of a global society. It reveals itself in many expressions: “our common humanity”, “unity in diversity”, “our common future”, [and] “our common nation.” …principles, values, attitudes and habits that show a new perception of the Earth as a single community. (Gadotti, 2009, p. 28) Planetary citizenship views Earth as a whole, recognizing humans as a part of Earth, rather than seeing Earth as something to be exploited and dominated by humans. Citizenship must also be intergenerational to “… cover our responsibility for the long term effects of environmentally harmful behavior and the primary goods of future citizens… reach[ing] beyond the moral community of those living at present” (Postma, 2006, p. 25). We argue that to develop a planetary citizenship in which the earth is a participatory democratic member, higher education must adopt a model of ecopedagogy. Ecopedagogy refers to alternatives to traditional models of environmental education that are often placed in a framework of economically based sustainable development theories. Ecopedagogy, by definition, focuses upon social justice in the teaching of environmental problems and the development of possible solutions beyond the scope of existing scientific, political, and economic frameworks.11 Rather than teaching, which focuses solely on the tangible reasons and most immediate sources of incentives for various forms of environmental degradation, a progressive, macroperspective pedagogy is needed for multi-variant, planetary sustainability to determine the deeper sources of problems, and solutions to them. A dialectic approach to ecopedagogy is necessary to view environmental devastation from various perspectives outside of the developed ideologies of those who profit from these actions (Kahn, 2010). Without critical and dialectic perspectives (which are tenets central to ecopedagogy) on environmentally devastating acts, the academy becomes a tool to help sustain hegemony rather than to transform society.

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Challenges to neoliberalism have been made on many fronts, and the institutions of higher education are not an exception. Unfortunately, the combined effects of a fiscal and institutional crisis of the state have deeply affected the multiple crises that institutions of higher education have been involved with for many decades. In this compounded scenario, it is important to go back ad fontes and to recall that institutions of higher education were conceived as places (albeit fairly elitist ones) for the pursuit of reason, argument, knowledge production and implementation, and the betterment of the human condition. Our exploration of the challenges of higher education in California and elsewhere and some of the responses, both in the state and in other environments, calls for serious action and reflection. From a perspective of action, institutions of higher education should consider how to link with the different social actors that are continuously challenging neoliberalism, particularly social movements, progressive intellectuals, communities, and other key actors. From a perspective of reflection it is clear that new narratives are needed and not only to outline the future after neoliberalism will end. There is no question that neoliberalism as a regime of deregulation has failed and brought to us the most serious of economic and political crises. It is now up to the state, and not the market, to rescue the global system from its own demise. Yet, there are beacons of light, and some of the premises, the new narratives, articulated through the methodology of the generative themes may offer us a basis for hope.

Notes 1 Proposition 209 has been challenged in court. It was most recently upheld by California’s State Supreme Court on August 2, 2010. 2 Additional information at http://www. dreamact.info. 3 Imperial County, in the southeast of the State, faced unemployment of 27.3% in January 2010 (Semuels, 2010). 4 http://www.forumsocialmundial.org.br/main.php?id_menu=19&cd_ language=1 5 http://www.forumsocialmundial.org.br/ 6 http://www.forumsocialmundial.org.br/ 7 http://www.ussf2010.org/about 8 Utopia is used here in its Freirean sense, meaning that a utopia is a horizon toward which actions can be taken or moved toward but can never be reached (Torres & Teodoro, 2007). The term utopias in plural denotes that individuals have their own conceptions of utopia. 9 Though the situation in higher education may be different, clearly the tension between professionalization and trade unionization will remain, playing a fundamental role in the configuration of these phenomena in the future (Torres, 2009a, pp. 55–61). 10 These include such processes as the financial, debt, and trade issues; environmental devastation; military actions; and technological communication and travel (Held, 1995).

194  •  Greg William Misiaszek, Lauren Ila Jones, and Carlos Alberto Torres 11 There are numerous definitions of ecopedagogy, but we have chosen to use the following definition which dialectically and critically determines the linkages between social conflict and environmental devastation: ecopedagogy is environmental education through the lens of social justice.

References Apple, M. W. (2001). Comparing neo-liberal projects and inequality in education. Comparative Education, 37 (4), 409–423. Apple, M. W. (2004). Ideology and curriculum (3rd ed.). New York: Routledge. Apple, M. W. (2006). Educating the “right” way: Markets, standards, God, and inequality (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge. Arnove, R. F., & Torres, C. A. (2003). Comparative education: The dialectic of the global and the local (2nd ed.). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Au, W., & Apple, M. (2010). Reviewing policy: Testing, accountability and the politics of education. Educational Policy, 24 (2), 421–433. Borón, A. (1992). América Latina en los’ 90: Gramsci y la teología de la liberación. Buenos Aires: Utopias del Sur. Burbules, N. C., & Torres, C. A. (1999). Globalization and education: Critical perspectives. New York: Routledge. Chomsky, N. (2005). A world without war. In R. A. Rhoads & C. A. Torres (Eds.), The university, state, and market: The political economy of globalization in the Americas (pp. 39–59). Palo Alto Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Dewey, J. (1963). Democracy and education: An introduction to the philosophy of education. New York: Macmillan. Douglass, J. A. (2000). The California idea and American higher education: 1850 to the 1960 master plan. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Freire, P. (1985). The politics of education: Culture, power, and liberation. South Hadley, MA: Bergin & Garvey. Freire, P. (1992). Pedagogy of hope. New York: Continuum. Gadotti, M. (2008). What we need to learn to save the planet. Journal of Education for Sustainable Development, 2 (1), 21–30. Gadotti, M. (2009). Education for sustainability: A contribution to the decade of education for sustainable development. Saõ Paulo: Editora e Livraria Instituto Paulo Freire. Giroux, H. A. (1996). White noise: Racial politics and the pedagogy of whiteness. Unpublished manuscript, College Park. Grunwald, M. (November 2, 2009). The End of California? Dream On! Time, 28–34. Hahnel, R. (2005). Economic justice and democracy: From competition to cooperation. New York: Routledge. Held, D. (1995). Democracy and the global order: From the modern state to cosmopolitan governance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Henderson, P. (2010). UPDATE 2-U.S. Students protest fee hikes at universities; students rally on campuses across California. Reuters. March 4. Retrieved June 6, 2010 from http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN0415563320100304. Kahn, R. (2010). Critical pedagogy, ecoliteracy, and planetary crisis: The ecopedagogy movement (Vol. 359). New York: Peter Lang.

Selling Out Academia?  •  195 Kahn, R., & Kellner, D. M. (2006). Opositional politics and the internet: A critical/ reconstructive approach. In M. G. Durham & D. Kellner (Eds.), Media and cultural studies: Keyworks (rev. ed., pp. 703–725). Malden, MA: Blackwell. Korry, E. (2006). Black student enrollment at UCLA plunges. National Public Radio (NPR). Retrieved June 6, 2010, from http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story. php?storyId=5563891. Luke, A., & Luke, C. (2000). A situated perspective on cultural globalization and education: Critical perspectives. New York: Routledge. McCowan, T. (2007). Expansion without equity: An analysis of current policy on access to higher education in Brazil. Higher Education, 53 (5), 579–598. Morrow, R. A. (2005). Critical theory, globalization, and higher education: Political economy and the cul-de-sac of the postmodernist cultural turn. In R. A. Rhoads & C. A. Torres (Eds.) The university, state, and market: The political economy of globalization in the Americas. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. Olivas, M. A. (2009). Undocumented college students, taxation, and financial aid: A technical note. Review of Higher Education, 32 (3), 407–416. Postma, D. W. (2006). Why care for nature? In search of an ethical framework for environmental responsibility and education. New York: Springer. Rhoades, G., & Slaughter, S. (2005). Academic capitalism and the new economy: Privatization as shifting the target of public subsidy in higher education. In R. A. Rhoads & C. A. Torres (Eds.) The university, state, and market: The political economy of globalization in the Americas. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. Rhoads, R. A., & Rhoades, G. (2005). Graduate student unionization as a postindustrial social movement: Identity, ideology, and contested US academy. In R. A. Rhoads & C. A. Torres (Eds.) The university, state, and market: The political economy of globalization in the Americas. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. Rhoads, R. A., & Torres, C. A. (2005). The university, state, and market: The political economy of globalization in the Americas. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. Rhoads, R. A., Torres, C. A., & Brewster, A. (2005a). Globalization and the challenge to national universities in Argentina and Mexico. In R. A. Rhoads & C. A. Torres (Eds.), The university, state, and market: The political economy of globalization in the Americas (pp. 164–202). Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. Rhoads, R. A., Torres, C. A., & Brewster, A. (2005b). Neoliberalism, globalization, and Latin American higher education: The challenge to national universities. International handbook on globalization, education and policy research. Global pedagogies and policies (pp. 131–145). Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer. Rizvi, F. (2000). International education and the production of global imagination. In N. C. Burbules & C. A. Torres (Eds.), Globalization and education: Critical perspectives (pp. 205–225). New York: Routledge. Samoff, J. (2007). Institutionalizing international influence. In R. F. Arnove & C. A. Torres (Eds.), Comparative education: The dialectic of the global and the local (3rd ed., pp. 47–78). Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. Schrag, P. (1998). Paradise lost. New York: New Press. Schugurensky, D. (2007). Higher education restructuring in the era of globalization: Toward a heteronomous model. In R. F. Arnove & C. A. Torres (Eds.), Comparative education: The dialectic of the global and the local (3rd ed., pp. 257–276). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Semuels, A. (2010). Unemployment tops 20% in eight California counties: The state’s jobless rate of 12.5% in January was its worst on record and fifth-highest

196  •  Greg William Misiaszek, Lauren Ila Jones, and Carlos Alberto Torres in the nation. The Economy. Retrieved June 6, 2010, from http://articles.latimes. com/2010/mar/11/business/la-fi-cal-jobs11-2010mar11 Slaughter, S., & Leslie, L. L. (1997). Academic capitalism: Politics, policies, and the entrepreneurial university. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Stromquist, N. P. (2002). Education in a globalized world: The connectivity of economic power, technology, and knowledge. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Torres, C. A. (1998). Democracy, education, and multiculturalism: Dilemmas of citizenship in a global world. Comparative Education Review, 42 (4), 421–447. Torres, C. A. (2005). Globalization and higher education in the Americas. In R. A. Rhoads & C. A. Torres (Eds.), The university, state, and market: The political economy of globalization in the Americas (pp. 1–38). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Torres, C. A. (2009a). Education and neoliberal globalization. New York: Routledge. Torres, C. A. (2009b). Globalizations and education: Collected essays on class, race, gender, and the state. New York: Teachers College Press. Torres, C. A. (in press). Education and neoliberal globalization: Essays of opposition. New York: Routledge. Torres, C. A., & Rhoads, R. A. (2005). Introduction: Gobalization and higher education in the Americas. In R. A. Rhoads & C. A. Torres (Eds.), The university, state, and market: The political economy of globalization in the Americas. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. Torres, C. A., & Teodoro, A. (2007). Critique and utopia: New developments in the sociology of education in the twenty-first century. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Torres, C. A., & van Heertum, R. (2009). Globalization and neoliberalism. The challenges and opportunities of radical pedagogy. In M. Simons, M. Olssen, & M. A. Peters (Eds.), Re-reading education policies. A handbook studying the policy agenda of the 21st century. Boston: Sense Publishing. UC Office of the President. (1999). California Master Plan for Higher Education: Major Features. Retrieved from http://ucfuture.universityofcalifornia.edu/ documents/ca_masterplan_summary.pdf Van Heertum, R., Olmos, L. E., & Torres, C. A. (2010). Educating the global citizen: In the shadow of neoliberalism—thirty years of educational reform in North America. Oak Park, IL: Bentham Science Publishers. Yancy, G. (2004). What white looks like: African-American philosophers on the whiteness question. New York: Routledge. Yudof, M. (2011). UC president’s open letter to California, January 10, 2011. Retrieved from http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/24763

12

Post-Neoliberalism The Professional Identity of Faculty Off the Tenure Track

John S. Levin, Genevieve Shaker, and Richard Wagoner

The consequences of neoliberal ideology and a burgeoning global economy, generally, and the academic capitalist regime, specifically (Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004), have left their mark on the structure and function of faculty work in U.S. universities. The substantial alteration is in part a consequence of a teaching labor force now aligned with marketplace needs, dynamics, and demands (Donoghue, 2008). This transformation also includes the manner in which the key teaching mission is carried out. In the main, a core group of peripheral yet crucial faculty with marginal or contested professional identities fulfills this institutional assignment. This clearly defined nontenure-eligible cohort of the faculty workforce increasingly serves as the vehicle to educate a substantial portion of university students (American Association of University Professors [AAUP], 2009a; JBL Associates, 2008; Nevill & Bradburn, 2006). How did this come to be? Are there practices in other countries that parallel this practice, and are these the result of institutional isomorphism, globalization, and similar responses to resource dependency and shrinking budgets? In this chapter, we examine the implications of a globally altered market economy on the rise and conditions of the non-tenure-track professoriate. We seek to emphasize the central position these faculty play in university functioning by naming them as the “faculty corps.” Characterized by lowstatus and heavy teaching loads, the corps includes part-time and fulltime non-tenure-track (FTNT) faculty. In spite of their criticality to higher 197

198  •  John S. Levin, Genevieve Shaker, and Richard Wagoner

education, this population is outside the mainstream professoriate. As such, they appear as the expendable labor force within universities. Counterintuitively, they may also be the model for the majority of faculty in the future. Economic considerations including budget recessions and fiscal planning are major determinants of their employment (Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, 2009).Their condition as workers and professionals is important yet problematical. The corps experiences institutional connections that are both tenuous and contingent. Their role as professionals (Krause, 1996) is either ambiguous or questionable, or both. As such, non-tenure-track faculty are positioned to be at odds with their roles as faculty and within their academic homes. They are often portrayed as a result of or as contributing to much of what is wrong with contemporary academe. This simplistic depiction, however, does little to document their position in the landscape of faculty work or to explain the current condition of academe. The faculty corps is a product both of the failure of traditional faculty labor structures in universities and colleges, where tenure is the dominant organizational norm, and of new capitalism (Sennett, 2006) or neoliberalism: economic and social ideologies that have been preeminent globally and at the microlevel of higher education in recent decades (Deem, 1998; Levin, 2006; Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004). The context of neoliberalism and acknowledgment of a weakened faculty profession (Schuster & Finkelstein, 2006), in tandem with Sennett’s (2006) prescription for a supportive culture for labor, allows for development of a line of argument that leads to a way out for both the professional identity and employment issues of the faculty corps. This process is supported by some discussion of practices in Australia and Canada as nations that have attempted to guard against extremes in the profession, although they may not have been any more successful than the United States.

The Consequences of Neoliberalism and the Results of a Weak Profession The outcomes of neoliberalism on higher education institutions are complex. As institutions, universities and colleges have been both victimized by and immune to neoliberal projects. In the occupational and professional work and ideals of faculty, neoliberalism has, on the one hand, left dramatic effects and, on the other hand, left little sign of its presence. We see the first in the increase and prominence of contingent faculty; we see the second in the seemingly impermeable institutional norms and deep-seated behaviors of the collective faculty, embodied in tenure-track faculty. Furthermore, the current circumstances for the faculty corps and their increase in numbers are not only dividing the faculty profession and amplifying confusion about what it means to be a faculty member in the contemporary university (Cross

Post-Neoliberalism  •  199

& Goldenberg, 2009; Schuster & Finkelstein, 2006) but are inadvertently deleterious to the professional identity of all faculty. Academics’ professional identity, for example, rests on a growing falsehood—that all faculty work consists of the triad of research, teaching, and service. The lack of cohesion in the professoriate and the rise of the category of non-tenure track can, at least in part, be traced back to neoliberal practices. Neoliberalism and the Academy We face two substantive scholarly arguments in addressing neoliberalism and its effects on colleges and universities. The first is that neoliberal projects have pernicious results, and the second is that neoliberalism and its results are, if not irreversible, then certainly long-term conditions. The scholarly views on neoliberalism’s effects on social institutions, particularly education, are varied but generally critical. Apple (2001) offers one perspective on education that reflects the internal institutional conflicts. Education is used for both economic and competitive ends and for social and personal meaning, suggesting potential tensions between its purposes. Neoliberalism, Apple argues, stretches these tensions with ideological commitments to competition, to economically directed behaviors, especially toward global markets, and to the reduction of government responsibility for social needs. Other scholars (Giroux, 2004; Kingfisher, 2002; Stromquist, 2002) provide a litany of complaints about neoliberal projects, from their responsibility for creating a society of low-skilled workers (Giroux, 2004) to their privileging those with the greatest capabilities and advantages (DeMartino, 2000; Duggan, 2003). For higher education specifically, Slaughter and Rhoades (2004) characterize traditional colleges and universities as gripped by market-oriented behaviors whereby existing units are restructured and new units are established to pursue revenues. In line with Apple’s general view of education, Slaughter and Rhoades see the academic profession pulled between roles as (1) servants of the public, a social trust model of professionalism, and (2) merchants of knowledge, an expert model of professionalism, with a neoliberal twist. They argue that two “regimes” or power structures cohabit and direct universities and colleges: an old regime characterized by its commitment to the public good and a new regime aligned with the knowledge and information economy. That the cultural and normative framework of institutions is powerful, particularly in colleges and universities, is a cornerstone of neoinstitutionalism (Scott, 1995). The old regime, the one based on social trust and largely codified in the tenure system and faculty governance, continues to control conditions of work and the definition of work itself, often through its reward structure. The old regime, however, breaks down when practices and structures are replaced, when professional socialization is inadequate,

200  •  John S. Levin, Genevieve Shaker, and Richard Wagoner

when there are intrusions of personal interest, and when there are changed circumstances (Scott, 1995). A number of higher education scholars have attempted to document what we might refer to as a deinstitutionalization of the social trust model (Marginson & Considine, 2000; Slaughter & Leslie, 1997), and some less scholarly observers have attempted to ring the alarm (Gould, 2003; Readings, 1997) to indicate that the public-good ethos of universities and colleges has disappeared and that there is no returning to this model. Part of the problem with the social trust model is that it is based on assumptions of labor that no longer apply, and it is doubtful whether they ever did to the extent claimed. Teaching, that centerpiece of the public-good or social-trust model, had become a service, one that could be performed by a variety of occupational groups, in a number of different ways—online, via video, and broadcast on public access TV—and for different purposes, including the generation of revenue through sales and fees (Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004). The degeneration of the social trust model is consistent with the movement toward a less permanent corps of faculty (Finkelstein, Seal, & Schuster, 1998). In spite of recent research that claims that managers— university and college administrators and boards—have not resorted to reliance on non-tenure-track faculty as a deliberate economic strategy (Cross & Goldenberg, 2009), the use of the faculty corps is tightly coupled with economic conditions and state funding constraints. Neoliberalism and the Academic Profession From the perspective of neoliberalism, then, faculty in universities and colleges are economic entities, a condition that Slaughter and Rhoades (2004) argue is the consequence of the commodification of their work. The research conducted by faculty fulfills the capitalist motives of their institutions, and their teaching is demoted to having instrumental value— and left increasingly to non-tenure-track faculty and teaching assistants. The workforce is stratified through creation of a class of elites, particularly those who can maximize institutional prestige and generate wealth, and a class of “worker bees” (Deem, 1998; Levin, 2006; Welch, 2000). For the elites and the elite “wannabees,” the effects of neoliberalism are muted as this labor force is rewarded or tempted with the promise of reward for academic capitalist behaviors, although their social trust ethos has become corroded. For the worker bees, the effects of neoliberalism are risk, insecurity, low status, and weak institutional loyalty (Giroux, 2004; Smith, 2001; Torres & Schugurensky, 2002). Another view on neoliberalism (or “new capitalism”) and its costs comes from Sennett (2006), whose observations center on the effects of structural economic change on the occupations and professions. Sennett’s concern is with the lack of a cultural anchor for workers—lack of meaning,

Post-Neoliberalism  •  201

lack of self-worth, and lack of expertise. These are equated with deficits in the workforce generally and in individual workers particularly. The deficits include low institutional loyalty, diminution of informal trust among workers, and weakening of institutional knowledge. Sennett’s values are applicable to the faculty corps — those academics faced with these potential deficits given both the nature of their work and their institutional status. Echoing Sennett (1998), Smith (2001) emphasizes the importance of secure institutions, sustainable through their responsibilities to their workforces. What Smith found was that even a highly vulnerable workforce that lacked employment stability developed a deep attachment to its workplace and its organization.

The Faculty Corps All institutional types—research universities, master’s universities, and community colleges—depend on a numerically dominant class of faculty who teach either part-time or full-time non-tenure track. Indeed, this group is the new majority of faculty in universities and colleges (JBL Associates, 2008; Nevill & Bradburn, 2006). Yet, they are poorly compensated for their work, with pay well below parity with other college and university faculty, and lack employment security (AAUP, 2009b; Cross & Goldenberg, 2009). They are not viewed either as central to college and university functioning or as significant players in governance and decision making. Their employment conditions are far from optimal and their status as professionals is diminutive. Table 12.1 depicts the populations in 4-year colleges and universities by institutional type and by faculty employment status. Together they comprise 59% of faculty in these institutions collectively, although their proportion varies greatly by institutional type. Among the majority of faculty in higher education in the United States, part-time faculty and FTNT faculty share several characteristics and conditions. Neither the part-timers nor full-timers have tenure; neither are on the tenure track. All are often described as being less connected to their institutions; their usual function is to teach, although there is a substantial population of FTNT who are in administrative and research roles, and they are paid less to perform their duties than are tenure-line faculty (AAUP, 2009b; Baldwin & Chronister, 2001; Bland, Center, Finstad, Risbey, & Staples, 2006; Gappa & Leslie, 1997). Common terminology—including “adjunct” and, more recently, “contract” and “contingent”—is often used to identify both part-time and FTNT faculty. These and other similarities, however, may be eclipsed by a substantial set of differences between the groups. Perhaps the critical distinction is their classification as part- or full-time employees and related issues of compensation, benefits, and contract duration. Part-time faculty salaries

202  •  John S. Levin, Genevieve Shaker, and Richard Wagoner Table 12.1  University faculty in U.S. (4-year institutions, 2007) Institutional type

Full time, tenuretrack

Full-time, Nontenure-track

Part-time

Public Research/ Doctoral

181,864

90,617

99,428

Public Comprehensives

58,250

16,280

65,568

Private Research/ Doctoral

80,670

49,793

87,068

Private Comprehensives

45,458

26,962

81,512

Totals

366,242

183,652

333,606

Source: American Academic. The state of the higher education workforce 1997–2007 (AFT Higher Education, 2009)

are not prorated on a per-course basis in comparison to FTNT faculty, and part-timers do not receive fringe benefits at the same level as their full-time counterparts (Cross & Goldenberg, 2009). Part-time faculty are rarely given a contract that exceeds one academic term, and their employment can be terminated or let lapse at any time, whereas FTNT faculty tend to be hired for an academic year, often with the possibility of multiyear contracts. A result of these differences is that FTNT faculty appear to have closer institutional ties than do part-time faculty (The Center for the Education of Women [CEW], 2007; Rajagopal, 2004; Shaker, 2008). In short, similarities between part-time faculty and FTNT faculty stem from their ineligibility for tenure and the institutional status and implied employment stability they bring, whereas their differences arise from the benefits that full-time employment brings even without tenure. Notwithstanding these distinctions, the popular media, critics, researchers, institutional record keepers, and faculty associations (CEW, 2007; Cross & Goldenberg, 2009; Evans, 1996) typically group fulland part-time contract faculty together for practical purposes, policy declarations, and research ease. The two cohorts, however, should be viewed as distinct populations owing to their unique experiences, conditions, and characteristics. Part-Time Faculty After WWII, the United States became increasingly committed to mass and then universal educational access; institutions’ human and fiscal resources strained to keep pace (Thelin, 2004). To manage swelling enrollments and broadening missions, tenure-track faculty and graduate student teaching

Post-Neoliberalism  •  203

assistants soon found relief in the form of part-time faculty, one option in controlling escalating costs and lining up universities and colleges with new economy practices (Rifkin, 1995; Smith, 2001). Scholarly Themes Throughout the postwar period, two uses of and perspectives on part-time faculty were well expressed in both literature and practice. Traditionally, and prior to the 1980s, part-time faculty were employed to increase the prestige of institutions (Jacobs, 1998). Part-timers were most often visiting scholars, artists in residence, skilled professionals or technical workers, or distinguished citizens. In all these cases, the part-time faculty member brought skills, abilities, and talents to the institution apart from the regular faculty. Though this traditional justification and definition of parttime faculty began at the very least in the 1920s, it continues today and is considered a sound and valued practice. Generally, the majority of these individuals either are employed full-time outside the college or university or are retired after a professional career (Cross & Goldenberg, 2009; Gappa, Austin, & Trice, 2007; Gappa & Leslie, 1993; Jacobs, 1998). Beginning in the 1980s and 1990s as the numbers of part-time faculty swelled—particularly in community colleges, for-profit colleges, and state colleges—an alternate understanding emerged regarding the employment of part-time faculty. A bevy of scholars argue that the dramatic rise in reliance on part-time faculty over the last 30 years centers on their use as convenient and expedient means to lower costs and increase flexibility for institutions (Cross & Goldenberg, 2009; Gappa & Leslie, 1993; Haeger, 1998; Jacobs, 1998; Liu & Zhang, 2007; Rhoades, 1996). Part-time faculty, for example, are now 38% of the total faculty at public and private research/ doctoral and comprehensive institutions (AFT Higher Education, 2009). In a workforce wherein this growth may appear to have come at a cost to tenureline positions, part-time faculty members are no longer viewed in a positive light. The more traditional use of part-time faculty can be understood as a way to increase institutional reputation and prestige—a longstanding organizational behavior in higher education—whereas the more recent understanding of and rationale for part-timers is a means for flexibility and control over labor and costs arising from the focus on institutional efficiency that has been particularly emphasized in recent decades. Current Condition There is general scholarly agreement on another assertion about part-time faculty: by almost all measures—salary, benefits, employment status—they are at the bottom of the higher education faculty hierarchy. In a study of faculty

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salaries from the National Survey of Post-Secondary Faculty 1999 (National Center for Education Statistics, 2002) data, part-time faculty were shown to earn 64% less than tenure-track assistant professors and 38% less than FTNT faculty (Monks, 2007). The differences between part-time faculty groups are notable, however. Part-time faculty from technical and vocational fields appear to fit the traditional definition of part-time faculty as they earn the largest portion of their income from employment outside of academe. In fact, they earn significantly more income from non-academic sources than arts and sciences part-timers earn from all sources combined, suggesting that the latter faculty may fit the more modern perspective on part-time faculty. On average, part-time faculty receive no health insurance as a part of their contracts, and they are not accorded retirement benefits (Cross & Goldenberg, 2009; Gappa et al., 2007). The significantly lower salaries and lack of benefits are compounded by the tenuous nature of their employment contracts. In addition to attention to the insufficient and arguably unjust financial compensation of part-time faculty and the national data sets that display levels of satisfaction, another area gaining considerable attention is whether part-time faculty influence educational quality. Though educational quality has been defined and measured in multiple ways—pedagogical practices; interaction with and expectations of students (Umbach, 2007); student enrollment in and successful completion of subsequent courses (Bettinger & Long, 2004); and graduation rates (Ehrenberg & Zhang, 2005)—research has shown a consistently negative correlation to the increased employment of part-time faculty and educational quality. Decreased educational quality is associated with the increased employment of part-timers but may not be directly related to a lack of instructional acumen of individual faculty members. The perceptions of part-time faculty themselves on their effectiveness and the quality of their work suggest two points of view related to the movement from the values of academic culture that drive decisions to employ and retain part-time faculty to the values of managerialism, both of which are conditional on assumed social, political, and economic contexts. In a study of California part-timers from 1980, Abel (1984) found that many parttimers blamed themselves for their inability to obtain a full-time position. This was during a period when meritocracy was a dominant academic value; as such, part-timers may have more likely seen some deficiency in their own work that was the cause of their lack of professional status or advancement. A study from the mid-1990s demonstrates a transformation in this perception with the finding that part-timers were acutely aware of the new business efficiency model dominant at numerous higher education institutions, with its resulting bifurcation of faculty labor (Barker, 1998). They no longer blamed themselves for not having a full-time, tenured position but instead accused the unjust system dominated by professional managers, not academics, who

Post-Neoliberalism  •  205

were driven by a need to seek efficiency, not collegiality and meritocratic rewards. This indicates that the nature of part-time work in colleges and universities has changed and, with it, the perceptions and responses of parttime faculty as well. By the 1990s, employment control is located within the administration and shaped by a business model of employee relations. This change in the locus of control relates both to the socially constructed nature of workforce conditions to which Castells (2000) refers and to increasing managerial control that Rhoades (1998) documents, both in contrast to Gappa and Leslie (1997), who assume and assert that part-time and full-time faculty can form one faculty, a collegium. Barker’s (1998) argument that tenured and tenure-track faculty are privileged to the detriment of part-time faculty and that the lack of inclusiveness of the academy is reflected in “layered citizenship” applies as well to FTNT faculty (p. 199). Full-Time Non-Tenure-Track Faculty The U.S. public’s unease with tenure, declining government financing for higher education, an abundance of PhD recipients, changing patterns of student enrollment, and new curricular demands have all contributed to an environment conducive to the continued employment of part-time faculty. These same conditions coupled with growing concern about the quality of an educational experience helmed by the increasing number of part-time faculty contributed to the rise of FTNT faculty (Baldwin & Chronister, 2001; Schuster & Finkelstein, 2006). Scholarly Themes FTNT professors were viewed as a positive alternative to “excessive” reliance on part-timers because, as full-time employees, they provide a more consistent presence on campus and more frequent student contact (Gappa, 2000). Nonetheless, their low status on campuses and general lack of integration into the academic community as equal partners suggest that their contributions to postsecondary institutions generally and student education specifically are either not well recognized or viewed as less than those of tenure-track faculty (Shaker, 2008). Scholarly work on FTNT faculty appointments, which correspond to that on part-time appointments, illustrates academe’s approach to the pressures of neoliberalism and its influence on institutional decision making. The literature concerning FTNT faculty appeared initially in the 1970s and 1980s; another article focused on determining their origins, concluding that a glut of doctoral recipients in the 1970s was at least partially to blame (Roemer & Schnitz, 1982). This article and one by Smith and Hixson (1987) sought

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to make sense of the trend by considering whether this practice constituted the development of a secondary labor market, determining that there were some signs of a tiered structure. In the 1990s and into the new millennium, interest continued along the same path, as scholars and researchers sought to establish, follow, and document trends (Association of Departments of English, 1999; Schuster & Finkelstein, 2006) while beginning to consider ramifications without necessarily conducting empirical research (Curtis & Jacobe, 2006; Finkin, 1996; McPherson & Schapiro, 1999). Baldwin and Chronister’s (2001) Teaching Without Tenure broke new ground as the first book dedicated wholesale to documenting the phenomenon. This work and other research (Evans, 1996; Gappa, 2000; Shaker, 2008) sought to provide evidence about what FTNT faculty think of their positions. The writings of the FTNT faculty (Cayton, 1991; Murphy, 2000) and the Baldwin and Chronister (2001) monograph and publications that look at models of FTNT appointments (Gappa, 1996) are evidence of a “pragmatic” approach. This perspective suggests that these faculty may very well be here to stay (Cross & Goldenberg, 2003, 2009), might be a key way for institutions to handle competing demands currently and in the future (Breneman, 1997), and could be an appropriate resolution to some of the problems associated with tenure (Gappa et al., 2007; Leslie, 1998)—only if institutions take responsibility for equitable treatment of all non-tenure-track faculty, however. Perceived as a threat to faculty governance, the preservation of academic freedom, the norms of tenured faculty roles, and the tenure labor market, non-tenure-track faculty and institutional reliance are at times seen as countermanding foundational values of academe (Finkin, 1996; McPherson & Schapiro, 1999). Current Condition Hired for flexibility and cost savings, perhaps out of intentions to expand curricular offerings, enhance instruction, control faculty work, move away from part-time faculty, or to provide entrée to academe for those without traditional credentials (Anderson, 2002; Baldwin & Chronister, 2001; Cross & Goldenberg, 2003; Gappa, 2000), FTNT faculty are seen as both a solution to institutional challenges and an opportunity for change. Moreover, they are viewed as a force in the diminution of the power, influence, and dominance of tenure-track faculty. At 23% of the current faculty population and 30% of the full-time population (which includes baccalaureate colleges), these faculty have grown in numbers. In 2003, FTNT faculty were 59% of fulltime hires across all higher education institutions, up from 51% a decade before. New tenure-track appointments, meanwhile, declined from 42% to 37% in that same period (Schuster & Finkelstein, 2006). Unlike part-timers, these academics typically receive health benefits and have on-campus offices,

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resources, and many of the general employment accoutrements accorded to tenure-line faculty (CEW, 2007). They also have a greater chance of moving onto the tenure track than do part-time faculty (Schuster & Finkelstein, 2006). Depending on institutional type, as many as 50% have doctoral or terminal professional credentials (Bland et al., 2006). FTNT faculty are typically paid thousands less than starting salaries for assistant professors on the tenure-track (College and University Personnel Association, 2009) and can work on contracts of just 1 year in duration, although some stay much longer (Schuster & Finkelstein, 2006). They are clustered throughout the disciplines from the sciences and business to the humanities and education and are found across institutional types (National Center for Education Statistics, 2005). Variability in their roles and individual backgrounds and disciplinary affiliation influence both FTNT experiences and perspectives (Baldwin & Chronister, 2001; Gappa, 1996). Most recently and similar to attention paid to part-time faculty, scholarly interest has turned toward using data to examine the effects of FTNT faculty on instruction, particularly on graduation rates (Ehrenberg & Zhang, 2005), and institutions have been criticized for failing to take a long-term view of the influences of a contract workforce on institutional life, including productivity and institutional commitment (Bland et al., 2006). In this research, FTNT faculty contributions were held up for criticism, in part as eroding academic quality (Ehrenberg & Zhang, 2005). Ignored were the actual service, administrative, and teaching functions and performance of the FTNT, assuming, by omission, that these were either not as necessary or as stellar as the work of tenure-track faculty. Over time, FTNT faculty have slowly become more like their tenure-line peers in age and career stage (Schuster & Finkelstein, 2006). Currently, some evidence suggests that similarity between those with tenure eligibility and those without is reaching new levels (CEW, 2007; Shaker, 2008). FTNT faculty take on additional responsibilities for advising students, directing programs, conducting research, and engaging in service, winning institutional grants and taking advantage of professional development opportunities as they are made available (Shaker, 2008). These additional roles may require changes in their primary appointments and initial purpose, such as smaller course loads in favor of more administrative work. This in turn likely requires additional reliance on part-time faculty, the very group FTNT faculty were often hired to replace. In the main, the scholarly approach to understanding FTNT and part-time faculty in academe has taken a critical perspective: one stream denounces institutional practices; the other suggests that these faculty are not producing quality results. The third line of thought envisions an educational future with continued reliance on contract academic workers as largely inevitable and not necessarily deleterious. To observers of the phenomenon, from one

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perspective, the faculty corps’ employment status underscores dependence on external resources and reliance on a managerial class (Bousquet, 2008; Pfeffer & Salancik, 1978; Rhoades, 1998); from another, contract labor— their teaching—is chastised for a host of failings, such as lack of engagement with students and the erosion of disciplines (Cross & Goldenberg, 2009; Donoghue, 2008; Umbach, 2007). The cost of these perspectives comes in the form of a fractured professional identity that burdens the corps as they go about their daily business. Inasmuch as the faculty corps is characterized by self-doubt, a shortage of agency and opportunity, persistent reminders of a second- or third-class status, and demonization as being a source of what is wrong with the academy, it is no surprise that their identity as professionals is tenuous at best.

Practices in Australia, Canada, and Other Countries How does the United States compare to other nations in the appointment of faculty off the tenure track? Do contingent faculty in other countries fare better than those in the United States and, if so, what are the determinants of their conditions? Are there practices in other countries that U.S. colleges and universities could adopt or adapt? The available research on Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and U.K. faculty, though limited, indicates that non-tenuretrack faculty are a rising population (Robinson, 2006) with a substantial role to play and are viewed as a reflection of eroding higher education sectors. Part-time percentages in Australia are at 20–27% of the total; in the United Kingdom, at 32.4% (University and College Union, 2010); in Canada, it is given as 36.1%; in New Zealand, the figure is 39%. Our calculation, including baccalaureate colleges, for the United States is 45%. FTNT faculty in New Zealand is estimated at between 25% and 30% of the total of fulltime faculty; in the United Kingdom, this figure is 18% (Coates, Dobson, Edwards, Friedman, Goedegebuure, & Meek, 2009; Dobbie & Robinson, 2008; Robinson, 2006). The limited-term full-time faculty (LTFT) in Canada (a term that corresponds to the U.S. FTNT) is reported as around 10% of the total of full-time faculty in one source (Rajagopal, 2004) and as 8.7% in a more recent article (Dobbie & Robinson, 2008). For Australia, FTNT is 19% (Coates et al., 2009). Although U.S. universities rely on the faculty corps to a greater extent, scholars in the United Kingdom and commonwealth countries already indicate concern that non-tenure growth has come at the expense of tenure-track development (Coates et al., 2009) demonstrating an early awareness of potential consequences of the phenomenon. In these nations, the rising use of non-tenure faculty seems particularly opposed to professed academic and societal values (Coates et al., 2009; Dobbie & Robinson, 2008; Robinson, 2006). Possibly the United States has influenced a regressive employment trend when it comes to utilization of non-tenure-track faculty.

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Regardless of whether the United States has initiated an international trajectory, this country’s influence can be witnessed in several reports and studies that use U.S. scholarly literature to set their framework (Coates et al., 2009; Dobbie & Robinson, 2008; Rajagopal, 2004; Robinson, 2006). The claims in the research and scholarship about the conditions for parttime and FTNT faculty are nearly identical to the concerns raised in U.S. literature. For example, Rajagopal (2004) notes the inequitable conditions and challenges to a professional identity for Canadian FTNT faculty: LTFTs’ work in Canadian universities is characterized by heavier teaching loads, insecurity caused by contract status, little input into or control over teaching assignments, lack of time for research, relegation of their research role, and their consequent devaluation as “teachingonly” faculty. (p. 63) Australian scholarship offers the same concerns: heavy workloads and particularly a lack of institutional status, with little entitlement for non-tenure-track faculty to participate in faculty governance. Similarly, in Australia, there is concern about added pressure on and growing responsibilities for the declining number of tenure-line faculty (Coates et al., 2009), an alarm sounded by Cross and Goldenberg (2009) in the United States. Are these cases of institutional isomorphism and globalization of academic practice? That is, are responses of colleges and universities to diminishing or constrained fiscal resources the same globally: use lesser paid employees to carry out the core work of teaching? Or is this a case of taking one explained condition for a population of employees—the faculty corps in the United States—and using these explanations to frame understandings of a similar population in another country? By using the U.S. literature and its explanations, have scholars and researchers in other countries misinterpreted their country’s faculty corps or explained their conditions inaccurately? Seeking answers to these questions could not only aid in understanding the phenomenon internationally but increase knowledge domestically through alternate avenues of documentation and new perspectives, particularly from a theoretical standpoint. The concerns about the use of contingent faculty, presented especially in the literature of Canada and Australia, are expressed within a context of countries that are considerably different than the United States in their labor practices and their social benefits. Canada, for example, similar to Australia and the United Kingdom, has a university faculty workforce that is almost fully unionized or, if not legally a union, faculty bargain collectively for salary and benefits (Rees, Kumar, & Fisher, 1995). Collective bargaining significantly influences faculty employment conditions and appointment

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status. For example, faculty unions in Canada and Australia have negotiated collective bargaining contract language that places caps on the number of contract faculty that universities can hire (Robinson, 2006). An Australian study (Herbert, Hannam, & Chalmers, n.d.) included 10 universities that are creating policies to improve the sessional (i.e., non-tenure-track) faculty’s employment situation, including pay for extra activities and the provision and financial support for professional development. Indeed, university practices in countries, including several EU members that are more statist than the United States and more heavily unionized throughout, rely on a regulatory system, including restrictions on temporary employment; specifications of what rights and benefits are shared and which are missing between temporary and permanent employees; and compensation to temporary employees for their disadvantaged employment status (Pocock, Buchanan, & Campbell, 2004). Health care is another distinguishing factor between the United States and countries such as Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom. In Canada, it is viewed as an entitlement, and faculty are covered by provincial health care plans including hospital care regardless of employment status. These conditions are paralleled in Australia and the United Kingdom. Not so in the United States, where there is a denial of health care benefits to the bulk of the part-time faculty. Both of these conditions—unionization and health care—suggest that the concerns of contingent faculty in other countries may well be considerably different than for U.S. faculty. Thus, although scholarship in these nonU.S. countries depict non-tenure-track faculty as facing similar material conditions and professional identity dilemmas as the faculty corps, we observe that although their professional identity may be problematic, their material conditions are not as dire.

Post-Neoliberalism and a Way Out for the Faculty Corps Although neoliberalism is presently muted as an acceptable and effective approach for economic sustainability, its legacy is alive and well in public institutions of higher education as institutions grapple with financial stress and are pressured to rely less and less on public funding. Sennett’s (2006) solution for the legacy of neoliberalism provides a framework for both institutions and individuals and comes through the addition of three critical values to create cultural anchors for workers, including professionals. These values are “craftsmanship,” “usefulness,” and “narrative.” Present economic conditions in the United States and, indeed, internationally may provide an opportunity for the development and recognition of these critical values and an avenue for a strengthened profession based on teaching.

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The Centrality of Teaching: Craftsmanship and Usefulness “Craftsmanship,” one of Sennett’s (2006) three cultural anchors for occupations, is the first stepping stone for all faculty to strengthen professional identity as experts in knowledge dissemination and not only in developing new generations of experts but in legitimizing their institutions in the public sphere through educating citizens and preparing a workforce. For Sennett, craftsmanship is the performance and execution of one’s trained talent for the goal of doing well. Turning craftsmanship into usefulness is to apply craftsmanship to teaching and thus to affect learning. Teaching broadly defined, then, is the craft practiced by college and university faculty, tenure-track and non-tenure-track alike. Narrative as an Expression of Meaningfulness The research scholarship also implies that a form of detachment has developed in faculty work (Schuster & Finkelstein, 2006) and, for contingent faculty, detachment is likely exacerbated by low status and inadequate compensation (Baldwin & Chronister, 2001; Gappa et al., 2007; Gappa & Leslie, 1993). This latter condition mirrors Sennett’s (2006) conception of one of the deficits in the culture of work. The antidote for the deficit is the development of narrative that gives meaning to the working life of individuals. Meaning making for FTNT faculty can be found in the value to others that they provide through instruction (Shaker, 2008). For the faculty corps at colleges and universities, narrative that expresses the meaning of work may be the principal source of this population’s professional identity. Narrative establishes one’s identity, one’s attachment to one’s work, and the connection of that work to a larger structure, in this case to an organization or institution. For the industrial or modern worker, it was the bureaucracy that gave shape to one’s identity (Sennett, 2006); for the intellectual worker, the university teacher, it is the institution and its traditions and practices that become part of the narrative. To exercise agency, the narrator engages in and interprets her or his experiences in an institution. The Professional Identity of the Faculty Corps Together, craftsmanship and narratives of meaning can reinforce the usefulness of the faculty corps—both in the perceptions of faculty themselves and in the judgments of those outside the faculty ranks, such as college and university administrators, business and industry officials, and the public in general. Blame academic capitalism or the profit motive of universities (Bok, 2003; Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004), yet the disconnection between what most faculty want to do—teach—and what academe values—research

212  •  John S. Levin, Genevieve Shaker, and Richard Wagoner

and publication—has created a reward and recognition structure out of alignment with policy and practice and out of touch with public desires for a focus on student attainment and development. Though some faculty’s utility is bound up with research and teaching, the main faculty body, our faculty corps, however, is identified with undergraduate education. Attention needs to be drawn to the key role the faculty corps plays in educating students and in the operation of the universities where they work.

Final Words: Professional Identity of U.S. Faculty In the domain of teaching, all faculty face similar conditions, although nontenure-track faculty face these with more tenuous ties to their institutions, especially for part-time faculty. However, these similarities are obfuscated by the fact that non-tenure-track faculty are burdened by their lower status, a condition that can cause them, and administrators and researchers, to question whether they are legitimate professionals and what legitimate might mean given the dramatic reorganization in faculty ranks in U.S. institutions. Institutional commitment to continuance of the faculty corps is significant, and their identity challenges are likely to become increasingly relevant. The faculty corps is shaped and framed by structures and conditions that deprive them of a coherent professional identity and, as their numbers are a critical mass, their professional condition affects the overall condition of all U.S. faculty. At issue is the professional legitimacy of a population not only of nontenure faculty but of the entire cadre of college and university faculty in the United States, a point recognized in policy recommendations to improve conditions for non-tenure-track faculty (AAUP, 2009a). Rather distinct from these policy proposals from professional associations and to advance the professional identity of tenure-track faculty and promote that of the faculty corps, we note that Sennett’s prescriptions for craftsmanship, usefulness of work, and narratives of meaning are appropriate goals. We suggest that this can be accomplished through the recognition and activation of teaching as the central professional function of college and university faculty, although not the only function. There is thus a two-way street. One’s professional identity is bound up with how others see one (i.e., one’s legitimacy) and how one sees oneself (i.e., self-worth). For the professional worker, these views are framed by one’s employment conditions—such as compensation, benefits, and job status—and by the value of one’s role to the institution and its members. However, professional identity problems can persist even in the face of social protections as seen in such countries as Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom, and simply improving the benefits or salary situations of the U.S. faculty corps will not do away with these individuals’ internal issues of place and worth. Alternate and combined solutions are necessary.

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Nonetheless, two major recommendations follow from the discussion preceding. Clearly, employment conditions for faculty responsible for the central postsecondary educational function of teaching must be equitable. Benefits accorded to one segment of faculty—tenure-track—must be accorded to the other segment—non-tenure-track. Second, the faculty responsible for the education of students merit a role in decision making at all levels as institutions and institutional stakeholders benefit from the experiences and expertise of non-tenure-track teaching, research, and service. Administrators and faculty leaders in the United States and their Commonwealth counterparts grapple with some of the same challenges related to non-tenure faculty members. All make choices in the procedures, policies, and priorities of their institutions that set the standard for treatment of academic workers now and for years to come, bolstering not only professional identity but also the integrity of universities and colleges. Essentially, the faculty corps has a questionable professional identity because their work is not highly valued by their institutions: not only are they poorly compensated, but their work lacks prestige. They are outsiders, in the main, to institutional and unit decision making. Their marginalization relegates student learning to a subordinate function within colleges and universities. To place student learning at the forefront of academic goals, universities and colleges will have to reconsider their definitions of and practices toward faculty. Universities and colleges have obligations to all their faculty, including their principal teachers, and cannot expect loyalty to either institution or to students without accepting corporate responsibility for their workforce, including addressing their employees’ need for recognition, attachment, and meaningfulness in their work (Sennett, 2006; Smith, 2001).

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216  •  John S. Levin, Genevieve Shaker, and Richard Wagoner Liu, X., & Zhang, L. (2007). What determines employment of part-time faculty in higher education institutions? (Working paper). Ithaca, NY: Cornell Higher Education Research Institute. Marginson, S., & Considine, M. (2000). The enterprise university: Power, governance and reinvention in Australia. New York: Cambridge University Press. McPherson, M. S., & Schapiro, M. O. (1999). Tenure issues in higher education. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 13 (1), 85–98. Monks, J. (2007). The relative earnings of contingent faculty in higher education. Journal of Labor Research, 28 (3), 487–501. Murphy, M. (2000). New faculty for a new university: Toward a full-time teachingintensive faculty track in composition. College Composition and Communication, 52 (1), 14–42. National Center for Education Statistics. (2002). 1999 national study of postsecondary faculty (NSOPF: 99). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics. National Center for Education Statistics. (2005). 2004 National study of postsecondary faculty (NSOPF: 05): Data file. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education. Nevill, S. C., & Bradburn, E. M. (2006). Institutional policies and practices regarding postsecondary faculty: Fall 2003 (NCES 2007-157). Retrieved on December 6, 2008, from http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch Pfeffer, J., & Salancik, G. (1978). The external control of organizations: A resource dependence perspective. New York: Harper & Row. Pocock, B., Buchanan, J., & Campbell, I. (2004). Securing quality employment: Policy options for casual and part-time workers in Australia. Sydney, Australia: Chifley Research Centre (www.chifley.org.au). Rajagopal, I. (2004). Tenuous ties: The limited-term full-time faculty in Canadian universities. Review of Higher Education, 28 (1), 49–75. Readings, B. (1997). The university in ruins. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Rees, D. I., Kumar, P., & Fisher, D. W. (1995). The salary effect of faculty unionism in Canada. Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 48 (3), 441–451. Rhoades, G. (1996). Reorganizing the faculty workforce for flexibility: Part-time professional labor. Journal of Higher Education, 67 (6), 626–659. Rhoades, G. (1998). Managed professionals: Unionized faculty and restructuring academic labor. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Rifkin, J. (1995). The end of work: The decline of the global labor force and the dawn of the post-market era. New York: Putnam. Robinson, D. (2006). The status of higher education teaching personnel in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Report for Canadian Association of University Teachers, Ottowa. Roemer, R. E., & Schnitz, J. E. (1982). Academic employment as day labor: The dual labor market in higher education. Journal of Higher Education, 53 (5), 514–531. Schuster, J. K., & Finkelstein, M. J. (2006). The American faculty: The restructuring of academic work and careers. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Scott, W. R. (1995). Institutions and organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Sennett, R. (1998). The corrosion of character: The personal consequences of work in the new capitalism. New York: W. W. Norton. Sennett, R. (2006). The culture of the new capitalism. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Post-Neoliberalism  •  217 Shaker, G. G. (2008). Off the track: The experience of being full-time nontenure-track in English. Dissertation Abstracts International (UMI No. 3387054). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University. Slaughter, S., & Leslie, L. (1997). Academic capitalism, politics, policies, and the entrepreneurial university. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Slaughter, S., & Rhoades, G. (2000). The neo-liberal university. New Labor Forum, Spring/Summer, 73–79. Slaughter, S., & Rhoades, G. (2004). Academic capitalism and the new economy: Markets, state, and higher education. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Smith, C. B., & Hixson, V. S. (1987). The work of the university professor: Evidence of segmented labor markets inside the academy. Current Research on Occupations and Professions, 4, 159–180. Smith, V. (2001). Crossing the great divide: Worker risk and opportunity in the new economy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Stromquist, N. P. (2002). Education in a globalized world: The connectivity of economic power, technology, and knowledge. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Thelin, J. R. (2004). A history of American higher education. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Torres, C. A., & Schugurensky, D. (2002). The political economy of higher education in the era of neoliberal globalization: Latin America in comparative perspective. Higher Education, 43, 429–455. Umbach, P. D. (2007). How effective are they? Exploring the impact of contingent faculty on undergraduate education. Review of Higher Education, 30 (2), 91–123. University of California. (2009). Budget News. Retrieved on July 12, 2009, from www. universityofcalifornia.edu/budget/ University and College Union. (2010). Higher Education employment data. Academic staff. Retrieved on January 5, 2010, from http://www.ucu.org.uk/media/pdf/5/a/ hedata_academicstaff.pdf Welch, A. P. (2000). Globalisation, post-modernity and the state: Comparative education facing the third millennium. Comparative Education, 37 (4), 475–492.

13

The Chameleon’s Agenda Entrepreneurial Adaptation of Private Higher Education in Mexico

Roberto Rodríguez Gómez and Imanol Ordorika

Among the most significant drivers of the reconfiguration of worldwide higher education systems are a variety of processes that have been categorized under the broad rubric of privatization. Within the realm of higher education, privatization has neither an unequivocal definition nor absolute and delimited characteristics. Its description and analysis entail multiple dynamics, with considerable complexity, particularly when placed within temporal and spatial frameworks (Dolenec, 2006; Geiger, 1988; Slaughter & Leslie, 1997). Mexico serves as a useful case for the study of privatization in higher education. This chapter looks at Mexico’s transformation from an eminently public system to an increasingly private one. In this chapter, we seek to understand a number of diverse strategies that have driven privatization of higher education in Mexico and to place those strategies in a global context.

Perspectives on the Privatization of Higher Education The privatization of public higher education institutions has followed a path somewhat different from the privatization of other state-controlled enterprises (Maldonado, 2004). Several authors note that rather than opening universities and their services to market competition, as was the case in other types of privatization, the opposite has occurred: the norms and managerial practices of market competition have been instantiated within the systems, institutions, and processes of higher education itself. In 219

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essence, privatization is a process designed to permeate, or even to colonize, the public space of higher education with the logic of the market (Ordorika, 2004). The privatization process is composed of a range of operations that share a set of normative beliefs and a discourse. The pursuit of quality, efficiency, effectiveness, accountability, and responsiveness, among other demands, is presumed to improve the competitiveness of the sector as a whole, of institutions and their functions, and even of the key actors, such as faculty and students, who enact the essential functions of higher education (Brunner & Tillett, 2005; Etzkowitz, 2004; Ibarra-Colado, 2007; Moles Plaza, 2006; Renault, 2006; Teixeira, 2004). In one sense, these dynamics can be understood as the marketization of higher education, a term that refers to a set of transformations in which the underlying purpose is to ensure that market relations determine the orientation of development policies, institutions, university programs, and research projects. In essence, market relations will determine the existence of higher education. Indeed, marketization proceeds from a set of policies that demand that universities define their actions based on market relations. The objective is that resources assigned to institutions, programs, research projects, and faculty salaries should be allocated based on competitive assessments of the utility and productivity of those actors who participate in the field of higher education. Complementing this perspective, other analyses of privatization center on the transformation of normative understandings of the public-good character of higher education (Marginson, 2005; Pusser, 2006). This scholarship links the prioritization of private goods over public goods to the reduction in public support and the substitution of such alternative funding sources as increased tuition, the sale of products and services—including teaching, research and outreach activities—and the introduction of fees for services such as exams, the use of facilities, foreign-language courses, and Internet access, among others (Bok, 2003; Noble, 2002; Poon, 2006; Rhoads & Torres, 2006; Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004). One vehicle often cited as central to this process is the outsourcing of public higher education services to private providers (Newman, Couturier, & Scurry, 2004; Pusser & Turner, 2004). Several empirical studies have looked at the growth of the private higher education sector globally. Two aspects stand out from these analyses: the rise of the private sector, and the processes of differentiation, diversification, and stratification (Altbach, 1999; Holzhacker, Chornovian, Yazilitas, & DayanOcher, 2009; Varghese, 2004). Other studies have linked the imposition of neoliberal state policies and the increased presence of private providers — including transnational corporations — in higher education (Didou Aupetit & Jokivirta, 2007; García Guadilla, Didou Aupetit, & Marquis, 2002; Knight, 2006; Levy, 2006; Machado dos Santos, 2000; Rodríguez Gómez, 2004). In

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some cases, these analyses have found a deterioration of academic quality due to the private sector’s focus on a set of programs and educational goals that is far more limited than those traditionally found in public and private nonprofit institutions. This chapter discusses a specific aspect of the privatization process in Mexico: the reconfiguration of the private higher education sector. Our analysis begins with the hypothesis that private providers respond rapidly to the agendas of government agencies by adapting to the emerging rules but also by restructuring opportunities. This process has two dimensions. One of them is a consequence of the space created in the higher education arena as the state reduces its support for public higher education, opening greater opportunities for increased private participation. Yet while the state reduces direct provision and subsidies for the public institutions, it doesn’t relinquish control. Thus, we also turn attention to the ways in which the second dimension of the privatization project is revealed: the ways in which the state creates new rules of supervision, control, and quality assurance and a discourse of quality and competitiveness that is ideologically compatible with the privatization project and with the ambitions of private institutions. This aspect of privatization—the reconfiguration of the higher education space to privilege the private segment—involves a constant negotiation of interests (between the state and the private providers) that unfolds within a framework of multiple pressures and interests: public universities and other public institutions, the agendas of political parties represented in congress, and the positions of domestic business groups, public opinion, and academic debate, just to mention a few. This chapter is presented in three parts. First, we describe the growth of the Mexican private higher education sector in the context of university growth and change that took place between 1970 and the present day. The second portion turns attention to the negotiation process between private universities and the government regarding curricular adoption and accreditation standards. Finally, we explore some of the implications of the business restructuring of private higher education institutions.

Growing Presence of Private Higher Education in Mexico (1970–2010) The 1970s represented a decisive stage in the evolution of Mexican higher education, characterized by a remarkable expansion of the system. During that period, the number of students, faculty, staff, and facilities multiplied at an unprecedented rate. Several factors explain this trend: the construction of legitimacy through higher education after the bloody events that took place in 1968 in Mexico; an economic policy that favored the state’s participation in productive activities and services; the need to renew the

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pool of professionals, technicians, and political leaders in order to promote development policies; and a significant increase in the level of support for social projects from multilateral development banks, among others. During the 1970s, the student population enrolled in undergraduate programs more than tripled, increasing from approximately 233,000 in 1970–1971 to 731,000 in 1979–1980. The private segment of higher education also experienced a wave of expansion. In 1970, the private segment had a total enrollment of approximately 38,000 and, by the end of the decade, it totaled approximately 117,000 students. The creation of new private higher education institutions (HEIs) and the growth of existing institutions accounts for a significant portion of this expansion. Whereas during the 1960s only 8 new private universities were created (6 of them during the last 3 years of the decade), during the 1970s that figure climbed to more than 20 new private universities. This stage of growth and educational innovation came to an end at the beginning of the 1980s, when a new cycle started. The most prominent characteristics of this new phase would be the diversification of educational offerings and the transition from planning models based on budget allocation for programs to the allocation of resources based on formulas for productivity and performance incentives. Growth and academic renewal, the two fundamental instruments of educational policy during the 1970s, would no longer be the primary forces shaping the higher education system. On the one hand, for political and economic reasons, the philosophy of educational expansion that had relied on creating additional institutions for the expansion of programs and curricular offerings gave way to less ambitious strategies, such as the creation of specialized degrees and graduate courses, curricular reform, and pedagogical innovations. On the other hand, the priority given to the territorial expansion of the prevalent model of higher education was replaced by efforts to diversify the existing array of HEIs. The Mexican state responded to the economic crisis of the 1980s with financial and fiscal policy shifts, a restructuring of public administration based on fiscal austerity measures, and the downsizing of its institutions and bureaucracies. The education sector’s share of the national budget was diminished and reoriented as part of the restructuring. Public investment was increasingly devoted to overcoming deficiencies in the elementary education system and on developing technical and terminal sub-baccalaureate degrees. As a result, public investment in higher education lost priority. The crisis of the 1980s not only had a negative impact on the national planning and coordination system for higher education but, more important, it also meant a significant decrease of public investment in the sector. During the decade, higher education’s share of the federal budget in relation to the gross domestic product (GDP) fell from 0.68% in 1980 to 0.41% in 1989. This trend impacted significantly the growth of the public higher education system: from 1980 to

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1989, the total enrollment of public HEIs climbed from 785,905 to 1,026,252 students, which meant an increase of only 240,347 new students, fewer than half of the 498,248 students added to enrollments during the former decade. By contrast, private HEIs sustained the expansion trend they began in the 1970s. During the 1980s, total enrollment of private HEIs increased by 82,589 students, an equivalent increment to the one experienced over the previous decade. Thirty-nine new private institutions designated as universities were created, primarily in cities outside of the federal district (Mexico City). Furthermore, several private universities, most notably the Instituto Tecnológico de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey and the Universidad Iberoamericana, began to open branch campuses in new locations. In summary, during the 1980s, the growth of the public university sector rested almost exclusively on the expansion of the total enrollment in existing institutions, whereas the expansion of the private sector was based on the creation of new institutions and the beginning of territorial expansion. From that moment on, the private sector took advantage of the public sector’s diminished capacity for providing access to postsecondary opportunity and used the stagnation of public supply as a stimulus for its own expansion. This trend would strengthen over the following decade. The 1990s The political and economic context in which the restructuring of Mexico’s higher education system took place during the 1990s was shaped by the administrations of Presidents Carlos Salinas (1988–1994) and Ernesto Zedillo (1994–2000). Both regimes explicitly embraced “modernizing” agendas and promoted a development model consistent with neoliberal economic doctrine. In seeking to align Mexico to the dynamics of globalization, the Salinas administration orchestrated the enactment of several free-trade agreements, most notably the North American Free Trade Agreement. President Zedillo’s administration continued that strategy by signing a number of bilateral and multilateral trade agreements, of which the one with the European Union stands out. Mexico’s free-trade policies assisted the recovery of its commercial sector and boosted leading macroeconomic indicators. However, the model also increased inequality and income stratification, reduced employment in traditional economic sectors, and generated a profound crisis for the working poor. Another distinctive trait of the economic policy of the 1990s was the state’s withdrawal from most of the economic activities that were still under its control and the promotion of private investment in several spheres of economic and social activity, among them the educational sector. The changes in fiscal policy over this period had remarkable effects on the higher education system. Zedillo’s administration implemented

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a fiscal policy increasingly oriented toward the strengthening of local economies, which coincided with the coming of age of the administrative decentralization processes instituted during the 1980s. The decentralization of public expenditure on higher education had limited effects initially, though its consequences would be felt more clearly over the following years. Both presidential administrations also implemented policies designed to diversify the educational supply. They did this primarily by reinforcing the public technological education segment and by introducing subsidies designed to incentivize public HEIs—particularly autonomous universities—to adopt directives on improvement of the academic teaching staff, the modernization of institutional infrastructure, and the introduction of strategic planning models. The first expressions of this project were the Higher Education Modernization Fund (FOMES, 1990), the Teacher Improvement Program (PROMEP, 1996), the University Development Support Program (PROADU, 1998), and other funds for infrastructure development. These soon gave way to a new generation of policies that fostered institutional change through economic stimulus. Several evaluation agencies were established to implement this strategy, the most prominent of which were the Interinstitutional Committees for Higher Education Assessment (CIEES, 1991), the National Registry of Quality Graduate Programs (PNPC, 1992), the National Center for Higher Education Assessment (CENEVAL, 1994), and the Council for the Accreditation of Higher Education (COPAES, 2000). Even though there was continuity between the education policies of Salinas and Zedillo, the administrations differed in their approaches to two crucial issues: the growth of the public higher education system and the public expenditure policies for the sector. Between 1988–1989 and 1993– 1994 (Salinas’s administration), total enrollment increased from 1,033,160 to 1,074,003 students, which represents a total increment of 40,843 students or slightly fewer than 7,000 new enrollments per year. In contrast, between 1994–1995 and 1999–2000 (Zedillo’s administration), total enrollment increased from 1,100,826 to 1,367,020 students, a 6-year increase of 266,194 enrollments, for an average of 44,365 per year. This trend stood in contrast to their approaches to federal government spending on the sector. During Salinas’s administration, public expenditure on the sector as a percentage of GDP increased from 0.37% to 0.61% in the last year of Salinas’s presidential term. The sector’s expenditure ratio during Zedillo’s presidency remained constant at around 0.60%. Even though the state’s expenditure ratio increased during the second half of the decade (from 0.12% to 0.15% as a percentage of GDP), the truth is that Zedillo’s administration exerted an expenditure containment policy, which translated into a reduction of spending per student and severe pressure on public HEIs to search for alternative funding sources.

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Some of the most relevant adaptations of the system during the 1990s can be seen in the following data. The expansion of the public postsecondary sector was generated almost exclusively by the growth of the technological university sector. Through the creation of nearly 100 institutions (technological institutes and universities), enrollments in the technological sector grew more than 60%, thus increasing its share of the public system’s total enrollments from 20% to 36%. By contrast, the growth of the traditional public university sector remained essentially flat: enrollment grew less than 7% over the decade. As a result, the 1990s stand as a time of remarkable growth in the proportion of higher education provided by the private sector. In 1990, private HEIs provided 17.4% of all undergraduate programs and, by the end of the decade, they offered nearly a third of the total. To achieve this share, the private system grew two and a half times, sustaining an annual growing rate of almost 10% during the period. In all, 140 new private universities were created during the decade, not counting branch campuses and locations. The growth of the private higher education segment at the graduate level was extraordinary. Enrollment increased four and a half times in only 10 years. Besides expanding, as it increased the proportion of HEI’s guided by market strategies, the private system also expedited the differentiation of higher education systems in Mexico. A number of factors converged to generate this extraordinary transformation. As noted earlier, a key element was increased demand for enrollment that was unmet by the public sector. Even though, to a certain extent, the higher education system regained the pattern of growth that had been interrupted during the 1980s, the development model implemented during the 1990s combined two guiding principles: the diversification and the decentralization of the system. As a result, opportunities emerged for new forms of university organization and educational delivery in the most populated cities of the country, which were locations left largely unconstrained during the decentralization program. This indirect incentive, a stimulus driven by deregulation, reflected a state policy that bent the previous rules of authorization, regulation, and control of private HEIs. A new phase in the restructuring process of the public higher education system began with the election of Vicente Fox in the year 2000. The essential features of this contemporary phase included the formalization of public policies on higher education that had been introduced during the 1990s; the strengthening of the institutional and curricular diversification strategies instituted during the 1980s; and the consolidation of the evaluation instruments and regulatory agencies established over the prior two decades. The diversification policy was furthered by creating new institutional types. To the already existing array—public universities (federal and state) and technological institutes and universities—new institutional forms were added: polytechnic universities (since 2003) and intercultural universities

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(since 2004). More than 100 new public HEIs have been created since 2000, practically all of them polytechnics or intercultural institutions. Most recently, under the administration of President Felipe Calderón (2006–2012), along with the continuation of the diversification process, new strategies have been proposed to reactivate growth in the public sector. These have primarily relied on financial initiatives designed to stimulate enrollment expansion in autonomous public universities by creating decentralized institutions and optimizing the use of their existing infrastructure. Finally, the consolidation of assessment agencies and evaluation instruments over the past few decades is the result of a dual process. The use of new public resource allocation schemes has prompted calls for widespread evaluations, first in universities and then in the rest of the public higher education system. In turn, the very existence of evaluation, accreditation, and certification agencies has generated a new social perspective, one that views evaluations as indicators of the quality of institutions and programs within higher education. In this regard, external evaluation tends to reflect, in an imperfect manner but with significant implications, the principles of competitiveness that have shaped university reforms over recent years. The first decade of the twenty-first century witnessed a surprising shift in enrollment patterns within Mexican higher education: a slower rate of growth in the private segment. The efforts to expand public higher education seem to have slowed the growth of the private segment. Using data from 2000–2001 through 2007–2008, public higher education enrollment grew at a rate of 54,448 students per year, a significant increase from the 39,283 averaged during the 1990s. In contrast, the growth of the private sector decreased from an annual average of 39,668 new slots during the 1990s, to an average of 28,180 between the years 2000–2001 and 2007–2008. This trend points to two important dynamics. First, when the public sector endeavors to expand, private sector growth diminishes. Second, the private higher education market is particularly sensitive to the effects of the macroeconomic cycle, particularly to families’ loss of purchasing power due to the economic crisis (Fig. 13.1).

Private Higher Education: The Struggle Over Regulation The historical relationship between the Mexican state and the private education sector has entailed conflicts and disagreements as well as tolerance and agreement. It has been a complex history, permeated by the ideological contests within the Mexican state during the twentieth century, the cyclical dilemma between centralism and federalism, governmental definitions of a national educational project, and the diversity of political, normative, and practical considerations.

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Enrollment (thousands)

3,000

2,500

Total

2,000 Public 1,500

1,000

Private

500

0 1970

1980

1990

Data

2000

2007

Growth indicators Average Annual Average Annual Growth Growth (%)

Starting year

Final year

Total

Percentage

HE total 1970-1979 1980-1989 1990-1999 2000-2007

271,275 935,789 1,252,027 2,047,895

848,875 1,258,725 1,962,763 2,623,367

577,600 322,936 710,736 575,472

212.9 34.5 56.8 28.1

64,178 35,882 78,971 82,210

12.1 3.0 4.6 3.1

HE public 1970-1979 1980-1989 1990-1999 2000-2007

233,413 785,905 1,013,474 1,387,406

731,661 1,026,252 1,367,020 1,768,543

498,248 240,347 353,546 381,137

213.5 30.6 34.9 27.5

55,361 26,705 39,283 54,448

12.1 2.7 3.0 3.1

HE private 1970-1979 1980-1989 1990-1999 2000-2007

37,862 149,884 238,553 848,324

117,214 232,473 595,743 1,045,586

79,352 82,589 357,190 197,262

209.6 55.1 149.7 23.3

8,817 9,177 39,688 28,180

12.0 4.5 9.6 2.6

Figure 13.1  Higher education enrollment growth in Mexico (1970–2008)

Conflict over the norms and procedures for the legal recognition of private schools has been a key aspect of these complex relationships. To date, there have been only three ways of obtaining legal recognition. The first is presidential decree, which allows private institutions to operate as escuelas libres (independent colleges). This practice was originally adopted as a way to satisfy private groups, primarily professional associations, which sought to establish HEIs. Later it was extended to other private universities with acceptable academic standards. The second avenue to legal recognition is known as incorporación de estudios (incorporation). Private institutions can formally register their graduate and postgraduate programs under the auspices of certain public universities. To obtain authorization, these programs must satisfy requirements established by the institutions granting incorporation and must agree to various measures of supervision and control. Public universities

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used the process of incorporation to protect private institutions that were ideologically opposed to the educational policies of the postrevolutionary governments. After the state and the entrepreneurial sector overcame their fundamental disagreements, the incorporation mechanism remained. It is currently an option for those private universities that choose to strengthen their academic standing through linkage with a higher quality or more prestigious public university. For a long time, these two options were the only ones available to formally legitimize private academic programs. However, the private segment’s expansion forced the development and implementation of a new alternative: the Reconocimiento de Validez Oficial de Estudios, or RVOE (official recognition of the validity of studies). RVOE sets the basic requirements for private institutions to obtain legal recognition. Stages and Strategies of the Recognition Process for Private Universities The first private HEIs to obtain official recognition were the Escuela Libre de Derecho (college of law) and the Escuela Libre de Homeopatía (homeopathy college), both founded in 1912 and recognized in 1930. These were followed by the creation of the Escuela Libre de Obstetricia y Enfermería (obstetrics and nursing) in 1931; the Instituto de Ciencias Sociales, Económicas y Administrativas (social sciences, economics, and business) in 1937; and finally, the Escuela Bancaria y Comercial (banking and commerce) in 1939. During the 1930s, Mexico embarked on comprehensive educational reform. Two aspects stand out: the constitutional reform of 1934, which established socialism as the official educational doctrine (until 1945), and the coming of age of the process of centralizing the country’s educational structures. Both projects were at the center of an interest group struggle between the revolutionary regime and the nation’s most conservative political groups. The efforts by the Secretaría de Educación Pública (Secretariat of Public Education [SEP]) to increase centralization were gradually reflected in a series of laws and regulations. The Organic Law of Education of 1939, the first prescriptive instrument with a national scope, vested SEP with the authority to grant or deny formal recognition to private HEIs and to supervise their performance. In 1942, the passage of a new Organic Law of Education had enormous repercussions, because it charged SEP with the responsibility of coordinating all academic and administrative activities of the national education system, including those pertaining to the private sector. The Organic Law of 1942 remained in effect for more than 30 years. During this period, which ended with the passage of the Federal Law

The Chameleon’s Agenda  •  229

of Education in 1973, private HEIs generally chose to pursue legal status through incorporation rather than the authorization procedure controlled by SEP. However, despite the existence of the federal authorization process and the incorporation mechanism, the granting of legal recognition through the use of RVOEs has never been abolished, and some private HEIs have continued to benefit from that privilege. The Tecnológico de Monterrey, the Colegio de México, and the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México obtained recognition through presidential action in 1952, 1962, and 1963, respectively. During the 1980s, other HEIs received authorization by presidential decree: both Universidad Anáhuac and Universidad Iberoamericana in 1981 and the Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara in 1982. After the domestic economic crisis of 1982, the constraints on public expenditure for higher education created opportunities for private investors. This started an expansion cycle within the private postsecondary sector characterized by the creation of new institutions but also by the creation of branches of the most successful private HEIs in new territories. Early in the decade, the private sector created a corporate advocacy organization, the Federation of Mexican Private Higher Education Institutions (FIMPES), to take charge of public communication and negotiation with the federal government, primarily with SEP. FIMPES’s participation was crucial during the legislative deliberation, negotiation, and decision making over the adoption of new procedures for RVOEs. During the second half of the 1980s, in the context of rapid expansion of the private higher education sector, the incorporation option lost some of its appeal. This was partly due to the fact that most of the top private HEIs had already chosen to obtain RVOEs rather than negotiate the academic and administrative requirements imposed by public universities. Furthermore, gradual decentralization of educational administration, beginning with the General Law of Education of 1993, opened the way for decentralized official recognition at each state level. Ernesto Zedillo’s presidential administration (1994–2000) opened a new chapter in the relationship between private HEIs and the state. The latter portion of the 1990s marked the beginning of political negotiations over a new legal framework for RVOEs. That contest ended in July 2000 with the publication of SEP’s Agreement 279. The agreement included an accord on “administrative simplification” stating the requirements needed by the strongest private universities in order to receive a status similar to that of the escuelas libres. In light of this agreement, FIMPES sought to establish its own accreditation system with the approval of SEP. In April 2002, FIMPES produced a revision of its accreditation criteria and, in May, signed an agreement with SEP by which the federal authority recognized FIMPES’s accreditation process as part of the requirements for obtaining RVOEs.

230  •  Roberto Rodríguez Gómez and Imanol Ordorika

This agreement was a critical turning point in the negotiation process between the state and the higher education system in Mexico. Even though some institutions equipped simply with a FIMPES accreditation continued to move forward toward simplification by establishing a bilateral relation with SEP, FIMPES chose to continue negotiating for better alignment between its own accreditation and SEP’s RVOE procedures. Moving Toward a New Regulatory Environment? Early on, the administration of President Vicente Fox (2000–2006) identified as a major issue the proliferation of higher education programs of questionable quality. Accordingly, through the National Education Program (PRONAE), the administration announced its intention to review the legal framework of higher education. PRONAE established a goal of setting strict rules for granting RVOEs and signing agreements with state governments, using common academic criteria. During 2001 and 2002, it was reported in the press that FIMPES and SEP seemed to be seeking accord on the need to review the RVOE. Throughout the first half of the decade, the government implemented three complementary strategies. The first was the adoption of coordination agreements between SEP and the individual states’ educational authorities to establish common criteria for RVOE. Only 21 such agreements existed in 2003 but, by 2004, each of the 32 states had an agreement of this kind in place. This effort was complemented by an initiative promoting the adoption by public universities of common criteria for the incorporation procedure. By the end of 2004, SEP announced that the standardization of authorization criteria for private HEIs had been successfully implemented. However, the Secretariat also acknowledged some limitations of this strategy and recommended that the accreditation of study programs should rest in the hands of the agencies recognized by COPAES. SEP’s second effort was to improve review procedures for RVOE requests under its jurisdiction. It declared that between 2001 and 2004, it had cancelled 210 programs belonging to 43 HEIs. Third, SEP proposed a method for integrating private accreditation through FIMPES with official recognition and accreditation mechanisms, a central demand of private HEIs. After considerable deliberation, SEP proposed an elaborate procedure, with new and more complex requirements, that the private sector viewed as increased regulation. FIMPES decided to postpone efforts to align its accreditation formula with the federal government’s regulatory program and ceased negotiations with SEP. Attempts to renew RVOE reached an impasse that would not be resolved until several years later, when a program accreditation model proposed by independent agencies was authorized by the government. With that, both public and private HEIs were governed by the same process.

The Chameleon’s Agenda  •  231

Entrepreneurialization Trends in the Private University Private universities in Mexico have recently undergone notable changes, driven by the adoption of an entrepreneurial approach to organization and curriculum. These changes have transformed traditional forms of administration and ownership, marketing and publicity, program contents, and fundamental approaches to providing tertiary training and education. Understanding these changes requires a focus on the difficulties faced by private universities as they attempted to sustain the rate of enrollment growth reached between 1990 and 2000. As noted earlier, during the 1990s private enrollments achieved an annual growth rate exceeding 10%, while public institutions grew less than 1.5% annually. After 2000, the private segment growth rate decreased to 5% annually while enrollments in the public system again began to grow. The expansion of public competition, and the increase of public supply through the newly created polytechnic and technological universities, help to explain this phenomenon. Other factors shaped this dynamic, including the diminished purchasing power of the Mexican urban middle class and increased negative public perceptions of those private institutions oriented to satisfying student demand with minimal quality standards and the subsequent loss of prestige of those institutions. All these conditions were compounded by increased government oversight of standards of quality in private institutions. Private universities have attempted to respond to this situation in various ways: the adoption of external certification standards as evidence of quality; the use of increased marketing and incentives to better compete for students; the corporatization of institutions; and the seeking of increased foreign and domestic investment capital. To ensure their financial viability, private universities have also adopted new institutional strategies such as selling a wider array of educational products and services and increasing the outsourcing of such primary functions as maintenance, food services, transportation, and the teaching of English and computer skills. Private institutions have successfully expanded their curricular offerings through the provision of master’s degrees, specialized programs, and continuing education. Through this “entrepreneurial transition,” profitability became a fundamental goal in the administration of private universities. As a result, a number of academic programs that were deemed not cost effective were canceled and, with few exceptions, most private institutions have relinquished basic research activities. Two particularly relevant and distinct trends have become visible with the adoption and development of the new entrepreneurial tools designed to make private higher education more efficient and profitable. On the one hand, there have been changes in the geographical distribution and the

232  •  Roberto Rodríguez Gómez and Imanol Ordorika

articulation of private institutional groups and networks. On the other, there has been a strong convergence toward a common system of program accreditation. Territorial Expansion: Seeking New Student Demand Niches Among the most interesting phenomena in the recent evolution of Mexican higher education are the territorial expansion strategies of private universities. These encompass diverse approaches and modalities. Universities that are affiliated with Catholic orders have established their branches following a network model (i.e., Universidad Iberoamericana, Universidades de La Salle, and Universidad Anahuac). Other private institutions, such as Universidad del Valle de México, Tecnológico de Monterrey, Universidad Tec-Milenio, and Universidad CNCI have adopted a form usually associated with franchises. It is also possible to distinguish between private providers with national or regional coverage. This can be viewed from different perspectives. It can be seen as a market strategy through which private universities decentralize in order to reach more attractive and profitable market niches—that is, to search for student demand wherever it exists. This centralization-decentralization dichotomy can also be seen as an economic process through which the goal is a quasi-oligopoly with student enrollments highly concentrated in a few institutional groups (see Table 13.1). In light of the new trends of territorial expansion, it is possible to distinguish three main forms: those private providers with national presence, such as Tecnológico de Monterrey, Universidad Tec-Milenio, and Universidad del Valle de México; those private university systems with regional coverage in different parts of the country; and university networks affiliated with Catholic orders and congregations. The national private systems that we have mentioned have been able to establish at least one branch campus in each of the Mexican states. The Tecnológico de Monterrey case is paradigmatic in that it started its territorial expansion early in the 1980s. The Universidad del Valle de México is very different in the timing and form of its expansion, which took place between 1995 and 2000 and was accomplished through the acquisition of previously existing independent private universities by the transnational corporation Laureate Education Inc. Table 13.2 shows examples of some of the emerging regional groupings in the private segment. A common feature among regional systems has been the establishment of decentralized branches in state capitals and midsized cities. Regional systems coexist and compete with national private university conglomerates. A rough estimate suggests that at least one third of all private university establishments are currently part of one of these systems or networks. Approximately half of the students in undergraduate and graduate programs in private institutions are enrolled in one of these systems.

The Chameleon’s Agenda  •  233 Table 13.1  Examples of private regional higher education systems in Mexico Institutions Universidad de Tijuana

Regional provision Northwest

States Baja California

Baja California Sur Sonora Universidad Autónoma de Durango and Universidad Santander de Durango

Universidad Autónoma del Noreste

North, Northwest and West

Durango Aguascalientes Chihuahua Sonora Sinaloa

Zacatecas Michoacán North and Northeast Coahuila

Chihuahua Nuevo León Tamaulipas Universidad Interamericana del Norte and Tecnológico Sierra Madre

Northwest, North, Northeast, Center and Southeast

Baja California Sinaloa Chihuahua Coahuila Nuevo León Tamaulipas

Universidad del Valle West, Center and de Atemajac Southeast

San Luis Potosí Querétaro Tabasco Campeche Yucatán Jalisco Michoacán Nayarit Aguascalientes Querétaro Guanajuato San Luis Potosí Colima Tabasco

Cities Tijuana Mexicali Ensenada La Paz Los Cabos Hermosillo San Luis Río Colorado San Quintín Durango Santiago Papasquiaro Gómez Palacio Aguascalientes Chihuahua Ciudad Juárez Ciudad Obregón Culiacán Los Mochis Mazatlán Zacatecas Morelia Saltillo Torreón Monclova Piedras Negras Sabinas Ciudad Juárez Monterrey Matamoros Reynosa Tijuana Culiacán Mazatlán Ciudad Juárez Chihuahua Torreón Saltillo Monterrey Montemorelos Reynosa Tampico San Luis Potosí Querétaro Villahermosa Campeche Mérida Guadalajara Vallarta Lagos de Moreno La Piedad Uruapan Zamora Tepic Aguascalientes Querétaro León San Luis Potosí Colima Villahermosa

26,201

17,784

12,173

11,019

8,963

8,434

8,209

7,783

6,385

5,448

Universidad Tecnológica de México

Universidad Iberoamericana

Universidad La Salle

Universidad Anahuac

Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara

Universidad Popular Autónoma del Estado de Puebla

Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Occidente

Universidad de Monterrey

Universidad Panamericana

Universidad de las Américas 9.1

0.2

0.3

0.3

0.3

0.3

0.4

0.4

0.5

0.7

1.1

2.2

2.4

% Natl.

26.7

0.6

0.8

0.9

1.0

1.0

1.1

1.3

1.4

2.1

3.1

6.5

7.0

% Priv.

Source: UNAM-DGEI, Estudio Comparativo de Universidades Mexicanas 2010

227,293

55,225

Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey

Total

59,669

Total

Universidad del Valle de México

Rate

Enrollment

2,223

56

57

32

26

59

138

119

211

116

143

581

685

Total

13.4

0.3

0.3

0.2

0.2

0.4

0.8

0.7

1.3

0.7

0.9

3.5

4.1

% Natl.

Existing programs

21.2

0.5

0.5

0.3

0.2

0.6

1.3

1.1

2.0

1.1

1.4

5.5

6.5

% Priv.

405

1.0

17

16

18

21

0.0

19

24

28

14

197

50

Total

22.3

0.1

0.9

0.9

1.0

1.2

0.0

1.0

1.3

1.5

0.8

10.8

2.8

% Natl.

83.7

0.2

3.5

3.3

3.7

4.3

0.0

3.9

5.0

5.8

2.9

40.7

10.3

% Priv.

Accredited programs

Table 13.2  Enrollment and undergraduate programs accreditation in selected private universities, 2008–2009

18.2

1.8

29.8

50.0

69.2

35.6

0.0

16.0

11.4

24.1

9.8

33.9

7.3

Accreditation

The Chameleon’s Agenda  •  235

In the expansion of contemporary private higher education, the creation and growth of these larger conglomerates also tend to stymie the emergence of independent private institutions attempting to build student enrollments. Private networks and systems are usually backed by federal or state government charters, they have a broader financial base that allows them to compete more successfully in regional competition and, as a result, they are in a position to force some independent private universities out of the arena. The Road to Accreditation The effort to ensure academic quality has become one of the most prominent objectives in Mexican higher education. The primary strategy has been to motivate institutions to earn accreditation from a group of independent agencies supervised by COPAES. Since 2000, the state has funded incentives for public institutions that obtain accreditation for their programs. Currently, public universities in Mexico offer almost 4,000 undergraduate programs. Through 2008, just over 1,000 (28.4%) had received accreditation. Additionally, a large subset of nonuniversity public tertiary institutions offer 2,169 programs, 222 (10.2%) of which are accredited (Table 13.3). Implementation of the accreditation system has introduced new conditions for the private sector that also reshape the competitive environment. The existing authorization mechanisms for private universities, described earlier in this chapter, do not sufficiently differentiate or distinguish institutions within the private segment itself or vis-à-vis public universities. This explains the growing interest of the most prestigious private institutions in reinforcing perceptions about the quality of their offerings through seeking accreditation. The private higher education sector as a whole has achieved much lower rates of program accreditation than have public universities. Only 4.6% of the total number of private programs have been accredited by COPAES. This proportion takes on new significance when we observe accreditation data for each of the private sector universities. Table 13.2 shows the 12 private universities or university systems in Mexico with the largest enrollments. This group includes a total of 227,293 students in undergraduate programs, representing 9.1% of the total national higher education enrollment and 26.7% of students in the private sector. This subset offers 2,232 undergraduate programs, 405 (18.2%) of which have been accredited. Those 405 programs represent 83.7% of all accredited private programs. It is also the case that some of these private institutions or conglomerates have reached higher accreditation rates than the average for public universities. This is true for Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Occidente with 69.2% of accredited programs, Universidad de Monterrey with 50%, and Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey with 33.9%.

380,025

850,175

2,472,178

Other public institutions

Private universities

Total

100.0

34.4

15.4

50.2

(%)

16,575

10,493

2,169

3,913

Existing Programs

Source: UNAM-DGEI, Estudio Comparativo de Universidades Mexicanas 2009

1,241,978

Public universities

Enrollment Programs

100.0

63.3

13.1

23.6

(%)

1,817

484

222

1,111

Accredited Programs

100.0

26.6

12.2

61.1

(%)

Table 13.3  Enrollment and undergraduate programs accreditation by institutional type in public and private sectors 2008–2009

11.0

4.6

10.2

28.4

Accreditation rate

The Chameleon’s Agenda  •  237

The movement for greater academic program accreditation has begun a process of reshaping the landscape of postsecondary provision in Mexico. As public and private universities participate more fully in the accreditation scheme, it is likely that nonaccredited programs will become increasingly marginalized in the competition for higher education enrollments. The two competitive adaptation strategies we have reviewed in these pages—territorial expansion in search of new niches and the process of seeking accreditation from COPAES for undergraduate programs—require access to considerable financial resources. At the same time, they require the renewal of existing academic, administrative, and managerial processes. Traditionally structured postsecondary institutions in Mexico differ on many dimensions, including size, geographical location, and curricular offerings from large private university networks or systems. Some of the challenges these distinctive organizations have faced, however, are of a similar nature. Institutions in each segment have attempted to standardize procedures, continuously argued for improvements in accreditation processes, and tried to establish efficient administrative practices.

Conclusion The globalization of market models of production and the widespread application of neoliberal public policies have dominated the transition between twentieth and twenty-first century practices for providing higher education. Though neoliberal policies and globalization constitute worldwide trends, they exhibit a diversity of forms and characteristics in different parts of the world. It is also the case that the repercussions of these policies vary in intensity and depth. Throughout the latter stages of the twentieth century in Mexico, social and economic policies were radically modified. Since the 1980s, the Mexican state has opened the domestic economy to international markets and reduced its participation in the direct production of activities and services. Similarly, the state promoted the deregulation of domestic markets and offered incentives to national and foreign investment to promote private participation. This transformation process influenced virtually all economic, social, cultural, and political activities. In education, and particularly within higher education, a new repertoire of policies was set in place. These policies fundamentally pursued three complementary goals. First, they sought to improve the quality of public higher education through the modernization of administrative processes, the implementation of an economic stimulus scheme to increase productivity, and the distribution of supplemental economic resources to promote the adoption of the objectives in the government’s educational agenda. Second, significant new policies were devoted to diversification, through public

238  •  Roberto Rodríguez Gómez and Imanol Ordorika

investment that prioritized technological institutions and the creation of new subsystems within higher education. The third primary goal was to achieve a greater diversity of institutional forms in higher education. Two forces attracted private investment in the sector. These were the stagnant pattern of growth in the public sector, which resulted in a considerable degree of unmet student demand, and the ability of private providers to achieve legal status through the RVOE process, which, combined with tax incentives for investments in the sector, facilitated the creation of numerous private institutions. Since the 1980s, the private sector has undergone two crucial transformations. The initial rapid expansion in the number of private institutions led to an intense fragmentation of the system. This, in turn, generated a stratification in the segment that affected the quality of private education services. The elite segment persisted, but new institutions with intermediate, and sometimes low, quality standards emerged. The second transformation took place during the first decade of the twenty-first century and was characterized by territorial expansion combined with the articulation of institutional networks and conglomerates with regional and national coverage that were differentiated through quality certification and program accreditation. The adaptation of the Mexican higher education system entails an interesting paradox. Driven by government policies, public universities adopted modernizing programs and reforms to incorporate business managerial techniques perceived as successful in private enterprises. These included strategic planning, productivity incentives, quality certification, and continuous improvement methods. These public programs became a benchmark for private institutions to emulate in order to remain competitive. In turn, private HEIs adopted entrepreneurial policies and practices to match the contemporary transformations established by the public sector, policies and practices that originated with private firms. From a sociological perspective, it is important to understand that entrepreneurialism implies a profound cultural change. Historically, Mexican private universities essentially constituted a social enclave within an institutional landscape overwhelmingly dominated by public institutions. In that incarnation, there were two clearly defined segments of private institutions: those schools and universities that were linked to industrial and financial groups and another set that was related to religious congregations. In both cases, however, there was a clear intent to forge a cadre of leaders for the private sector, in a variety of professions or as business executives. Both traditions shared catholic and liberal values that established the ideological imprint of private universities. The expansion of private universities has diminished their social homogeneity and ideological consistency and has generated internal

The Chameleon’s Agenda  •  239

competition within the segment. In this new phase, private institutions position themselves in the competition for students on the basis of their ability to meet student demand. A discourse of excellence has been adopted by institutional administrations, in concert with models of quality management, strategic planning, and marketing to promote the competitive advantages of each institution. It is foreseeable, at least in the short term, that the Mexican state will continue to strengthen the set of policies, measures, and economic incentives that are deemed to have generated positive results in terms of accessibility, evaluation, quality certification, and control of the system. In this context, the consolidation of public higher education systems at the level of individual states, integrated by institutional type and with dual coordination structures (state and national), seems like a rational and attainable objective. This will likely allow for the emergence of a public system with a larger territorial coverage, relatively satisfactory levels of academic quality, and social relevance. If this were to occur, the private segment’s share of postsecondary enrollments would likely suffer, as private providers would have to compete with public institutions offering lower cost, better quality, and broader access. In such a scenario, only those private institutions capable of rapidly and adequately adapting to the changing context would survive, which is, after all, the chameleon’s agenda.

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The Chameleon’s Agenda  •  241 Slaughter, S., & Rhoades, G. (2004). Academic capitalism and the new economy: Markets, state, and higher education. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Teixeira, P. (2004). Markets in higher education: Rhetoric or reality? Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Varghese, N. V. (2004). Private higher education. Paris: International Institute for Educational Planning.

Contributors

Ivor Baatjes is a senior researcher at the Centre for Education Rights and Transformation, Faculty of Education, University of Johannesburg. Previously he was coordinator of the Paulo Freire Institute (South Africa), based at the University of Natal. His research interests relate to the impact of globalization on higher education. Brendan Cantwell is a postdoctoral associate in the Institute of Higher Education at the University of Georgia. He holds a PhD in higher education from the University of Arizona. Brendan’s research addresses the political economy of higher education with interests in university organization, science and education policy, and globalization. Roberto Rodríguez Gómez is a professor of sociology at the Institute for Social Research, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). He specializes in sociology of education, educational policy, and comparative studies on higher education. He is a member of the National Research System and the Mexican Academy of Science. He chaired the Mexican Council for Educational Research. Currently, he is assistant director for institutional evaluation at UNAM, chairs the technical council of the National Institute for Educational Evaluation, and is the editor of Revista de la Educación Superior. Hugo Horta works at the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education of Portugal, developing research on the internationalization of higher education, the effects of mobility on scientific productivity, collaboration patterns and networks, and national research systems. His research focuses on Europe (mainly Portugal), North America, and Asia (mainly Japan). Mayumi Ishikawa is a professor in the Office for International Planning & Programs and School of Human Sciences, Osaka University, Japan. Her research focuses on globalization of higher education, its impact on knowledge constructions, and the status of internationalization both at micro and macro levels, with attention to the mobility of students and scholars and the emergence of hegemony. Lauren Ila Jones (PhD, Social Science and Comparative Education, University of California, Los Angeles [UCLA]) is an honorary founder and past program 243

244  •  List of Contributors

officer of the Paulo Freire Institute, UCLA. She works in governmental, nongovernmental, and university settings in both the United States and Latin America as an educator, researcher, and program manager. Ana Loureiro Jurema is an associate professor at the Federal University of Pernambuco, Brazil. She is actively involved in professional development for distance education teachers throughout Brazil with the Roberto Marinho Foundation. She is working in Angola, Mozambique, São Tomé e Príncipe as educational consultant of local development funded by AECID, World Bank (WBI), UNESCO-Angola, GTZ-Angola, and GTZ-European Union. Her work has been published in numerous books, journals, and technical reports. Ken Kempner is a professor of education and international studies and former dean of social sciences at Southern Oregon University. The focus of his scholarship is the role higher education plays in cultural, social, and economic development in newly industrialized countries. Recent publications include research on Brazil and Japan, and he has lectured on international development issues in Brazil, Japan, Mexico, Taiwan, Thailand, and the People’s Republic of China. He is the co-editor of the Association for the Study of Higher Education’s Reader on Comparative Education. Jenny J. Lee is an associate professor and director of the Center for the Study of Higher Education at the University of Arizona. Her most recent research examines the global mobility and experiences of international students and scholars. John S. Levin is professor and dean of the Graduate School of Education, University of California, Riverside. His present work addresses academic workers, and his past work on community colleges includes Globalizing the Community College; Community College Faculty: At Work in the New Economy; Non-Traditional Students and Community Colleges: The Conflict of Justice and Neo-Liberalism; and Community Colleges and Their Students. Reitumetse Obakeng Mabokela is a professor in the Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education Program in the Department of Educational Administration at Michigan State University. Her research interests include an examination of race, ethnicity, and gender issues in postsecondary education, and organizational culture and its impact on historically marginalized groups. Simon Marginson is a professor of higher education at the University of Melbourne, Australia, where he is located in the Centre for the Study of Higher Education. A member of the American Council on Education’s panel on global engagement, author of three papers for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and active in the AsiaPacific region, he focuses on problems of education policy, globalization,

List of Contributors  •  245

comparative and international education, and knowledge economies and creativity. Simon’s books include Markets in Education (1997) and the coauthored International Student Security (2010), Global Creation (2010), and Imagination (2010). Greg William Misiaszek is a PhD candidate (expected completion March 2011) with an MS Ed. Focusing on international education at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), his dissertation research compares adult, nonformal and informal ecopedagogy programs in North and South America. Other research interests include Freirean pedagogy, globalizations, universities, informal and nonformal adult education, Latin American education, and technologies within education. He is an honorary founder and principal advisor to the director at the Paulo Freire Institute, UCLA. He holds a BS in environmental studies and chemistry and an MS in education from the University of Southern California. Imanol Ordorika is a professor of social sciences and education at the Institute for Economics Research, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). Currently, he is general director for institutional evaluation at UNAM, creator of the online Comparative Study of Mexican Universities, and co-editor of the ASHE reader Comparative Education (2010). His most recent books are Hegemonía en la Era del Conocimiento: Competencia Global en la Educación Superior y la Investigación Científica (2010, with Simon Marginson), and La Política Azul y Oro: Historias Orales, Relaciones de Poder y Disputa Universitaria (2007). Brian Pusser is associate professor of higher education at the Center for the Study of Higher Education, Curry School of Education, University of Virginia. His research focuses on political theories of higher education and the organization and governance of postsecondary institutions in comparative perspective. He recently served as co-editor of the reader Comparative Education, second edition.  Genevieve Shaker is an administrator at Indiana University–Purdue University, Indianapolis. Her dissertation research on full-time non-tenuretrack faculty was recognized by the Association for the Study of Higher Education as the 2009 Bobby Wright Dissertation of the Year. Her present research projects address college and university faculty work and professional identity. Carol Anne Spreen is an assistant professor at the Curry School of Education, University of Virginia. She is also a visiting professor at the University of Johannesburg. Her teaching and research interests are in poverty, inequality and schooling, and the impact of globalization on education.

246  •  List of Contributors

Carlos Alberto Torres, PhD, is a professor of social sciences and comparative education (SSCE), division head of SSCE, and director of the Paulo Freire Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He is also the founding director of the Paulo Freire Institute in São Paulo, Brazil (1991), Buenos Aires, Argentina (2003), and UCLA (2002). Jussi Välimaa is a professor in higher education studies at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. He is responsible for leading the research strength area, education, and social change, at the Finnish Institute for Educational Research. Being trained as a historian and social scientist, Professor Välimaa has expertise in social studies of higher education. His research expertise covers the topics of academic work, disciplinary cultures and identities, and the relationship between higher education and society. Currently, his comparative research interests focus on the relationships between higher education institutions and knowledge societies in the United States, Europe, and Japan. Dr. Välimaa is a coordinating editor of Higher Education and is active in many international and national academic organizations. Salim Vally is a senior researcher at the Centre for Education Rights and Transformation, Faculty of Education, University of Johannesburg. He is also the coordinator of the Education Rights Project. His research interests relate to social justice in education, social movements, and education rights. Richard Wagoner is an assistant professor of higher education and organizational change, Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is centrally concerned with how and to what extent globalization, the new economy, and neoliberal philosophy affect higher education institutions and their practices, particularly the work performed by faculty at all levels. Akiyoshi Yonezawa is an associate professor at the Graduate School of International Development, Nagoya University, Japan. He has conducted various research on the internationalization of, role of the private and nongovernmental sector on, and quality assurance of higher education, mainly focused on Japan and East Asia.

Index

Aalto University, Finland 108, 113 AAUP (American Association of University Professors) 197, 201, 212 Abel, E. K. 204 academic capitalism 32–4, 42, 56; Angolan 165–6; Japanese 94; and neoliberal globalization 179–80, 190, 200–1; South African 149–50 academic hierarchies: Japanese 90–2 academic migration see educational migration academic performance: Japanese universities 73–5, see also accreditation systems; quality; rankings, Japanese universities academic staff: in Angolan universities 166, 171, 172–4; effects of neoliberalism on 200–1; the “faculty corp” and post-neoliberalism 197–213; in Finnish national universities 106, 107–8, 108, 110; and neoliberal restructuring in South Africa 147, 148, 149, 150, 153–4; race and gender in South Africa 122–6, 127–8, 129–35, 142–3; and universities as capitalist enterprises 188 academic triangles 70 access: for educational migrants 47–8, 52–3, 56–61; individual rights of 47, 187–8, 190; knowledge workers and service workers 164; politics of 16–17, 21, 42, 180; and student exclusion in California 180–2; and student exclusion in South Africa 145–6, 147, 148, 150–1; to education in Angola 163–4, 173–4, see also equality/inequality; gender issues; neoracism

247

accountability: and public good 12; and quality of education 189; and trust 153, 199–200 accreditation systems: in Mexican private HEIs 234, 235–7 Acker, S. 127 Acker, S., and Feuerverger, C. 123, 128 Ackers, L., and Gill, B. 50 Adelzadeh, A. 143, 144 administration structures: of Angolan universities 169–70; of Finnish national universities 107–8, 111 adult literacy: in Angola 163 Africa 159–60, see also Angola; South Africa African Americans: female scholars in United States 127 AFT Higher Education 203 Agostinho Neto University (Universidade Agostinho Neto) 167 Alapuro, R. 103 Alexander, N. 140, 143 Altbach, Philip 49, 74, 75, 86, 220 Althusser, L. 175 Amano, I. 82 Ambrozas, D. 27 Anderson, E. L. 206 Angola, higher education and the public sphere 159–76; the colonial legacy 161–2; education in Angola 162–4; higher education in Angola 164–74; conclusion 174–6 anti-hegemonic globalization 189 apartheid: legacy of in South Africa 126–9, 140–3 Apple, M. W. 30, 182–3, 190, 199 Argentina: higher education and economic crisis 183–4 Arnove, R. F., and Torres, C. A. 184 Asia: educational migrants from 52, 53–5, 57–9; female academic staff and global patterns of gender

248  •  Index disparities 124; social science research in 93; student mobility and international market 65–6, 72, see also developing countries; East Asia; Japan; Southeast Asia Asmal, Kader 144, 145, 146 Association of Departments of English 206 Association of Public and LandGrant Universities 198 Astin, A. W., and Oseguera, L. 31 Au, W., and Apple, M. W. 190 Australia: and international student market 66; non-tenure-track faculty and post-neoliberalism 208, 209–10 authority relations see public sphere, power and authority relations in autonomy: institutional, of Finnish universities 108–11, 112, 113; Japanese academic autonomy 87–8

Bland, C. J., et al. 201, 207 Blaug, M. 15 Bok, D. 14, 16, 31, 211, 220 Bologna Process 115, 117 Bond, P. 143 Borón, A. 183 Bourdieu, Pierre 17, 30 Bousquet, M. 208 Bowles, S., and Gintis, H. 30 Bradley, K. 123 Brazil: higher education and economic crisis in 183–4 Breier, M. and Mabizela, M. 145 Breneman, D. W. 206 Brigden, S. 7 Brooks, A. 123, 127, 128, 129 Brown, Jerry 182 Brunila, A. 107 Brunner, J. J., and Tillet, A. 220 Buddhist monasteries 8 Burbules, N., and Torres, C. A. 155

Baatjes, I. 147, 152 Bachrach, P., and Baratz, M. 40 Background memos 108, 109, 110–11, 113 Badat, S. 152 Baldridge, J. V. 30, 35 Baldwin, R. G., and Chronister, J. L. 201, 205, 206, 207, 211 Barber, E. G., and Morgan, R. P. 49 Barker, K. 204, 205 Barlow, M., and Robertson, H. J. 139 Bayh-Dole Act (1980) 33 Beck, U. 102 Becker, G. 14, 33 Beerkans, H. J. J. G. 102 beliefs: and ideological hegemony 40 benefits: of educational migration 49–50; for non-tenure-track faculty 204, 206–7, 209–10, 213; public and private 34–5, 39 Berdahl, R. 31 Bettinger, E., and Long, B. T. 204 Bevis, T: B. 49 bias: mobilization of, power and politics 39–40 Black people: and race and gender identity in higher education 123, 125–6, 127–35, 141; and student access in California 182, see also HBUs; South Africa Blackmore, J. 129

Calhoun, Craig 3, 11, 12, 14, 27, 28 California: economic crisis and higher education 180–2 Canada: non-tenure-track faculty and post-neoliberalism 208, 209–10 Cantwell, B., and Lee, J. J. 48, 50 CAP (Changing Academic Profession) 74 capital: forms of in higher education 31, 33–4; human, and public and private goods 10, 49, see also academic capitalism Carnegie Foundation 74 Carnoy, Martin 14 Carnoy, Martin, and Levin, H. M. 30, 165 Carnoy, Martin, and Samoff, J. 160 Castells, M. 27, 205 Castoriadis, C. 21 Cayton, M. K. 206 CENEVAL (National Center for Higher Education Assessment) 224 Centre for Civil Society 37 CEW (Center for Education of Women) 202, 207 charges see fees

Index  •  249 Chauí, M. 165 CHE (Council on Higher Education), South Africa 145, 146 China: Buddhist monasteries in 8; educational migrants from 52, 54–5, 86; international students in Japan 72, 88 Chisholm, L., Motala, S. S., and Vally, S. 146 Chitnis, S. 123, 124 Chomsky, N. 180 CIEES (Interinstitutional Committees for Higher Education Assessment) 224 citizenship, planetarian and multicultural 191–3 civil servant status: Finnish academic staff 110–11 civil society 27–8, 37–8, 38–9, 42 Clark, B. R. 27, 31, 70 Cloete, N. et al. 125, 126 Coates, H., et al. 208, 209 COE21 (21st Century Centers of Excellence) 72 Cohn, Bernard S. 94 College and University Personnel Association 207 Collegium, University 109, 110 Collins, P. H. 131 colonialism: effect on development of education 159–60, 161–2, 184 color, people of: and student exclusion in California 180, 182, see also Black people Committee on Prospering in the Global Economy 49 commodification of knowledge 186, 190–1 communications see networks communicative order: public sphere as 13 community service: South Africa 151–2 competition: and educational egalitarianism in Japan 89–90; and educational migration from Japan 90; for elite students, and social mobility 33, 36–7, 69–70; neoliberal market and policies 31, 34–5; and public good in higher education 15, 17 COPAES (Council for the Accreditation of Higher Education) 224, 230, 235, 237

copyright 18 corporatists 112–14 corporatization: in South Africa 143, see also Finland, corporatization of national universities Cose, E. 133 costs: of degrees for international students 53, 108; of higher education in South Africa 147–8, 150–1, see also economy; fees; funding; resources Cox, T. H. 128 craftsmanship 210, 211, 212 critical research: and the State 29–30 critical scholarship: and social transformation in South Africa 152–4 Cross, J. G., and Goldenberg, E.N. 198–9, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 206, 208, 209 cultural anchors 200–1, 210–11 cultural awareness 192 cultural contexts: Finnish universities as cultural institutions 101–5, 113–14, 117; impact of entrepreneurialization in Mexican private HEIs 238; integration and educational migration 51, 55, 57– 9; Japanese academic autonomy 87–8; Japanese corporate cultures 68–9; of race and gender identity in South Africa 124–6; South African universities 141, see also sociopolitical contexts cultural stereotypes 52, 57–9, 124, 127–8, 131–2 curricula: and accreditation in Mexican private HEIs 234, 235–7; in Angolan HEIs 170–1 Curtis, J. W., and Jacobe, M. F. 206 Davies, B. 153 De Sousa Santos, Boaventura 186, 191 decentralization: of Mexican HEIs 224, 232–5 Decree no.5/09 (Angola) 169 Deem, R. 198, 200 DeMartino, G. 199 democracy: education and society 187–8, 190–1; and planetarian multicultural citizenship 191–2, see also social democracy democratic publicness 11, 20–1

250  •  Index democratic state, defense of 190–1 demographic change: and Angolan population 161; and internationalization of Japanese higher education 69 Denmark, university reform in 115 Department of Higher Education, South Africa 143, 148 Detroit: USSF in 185–6 developing countries: education policies in 121, 122–3, 124; educational migration from 52, 53–4, 60, 69, 72–3; female academic staff and global patterns of gender disparities 124; funding and investment in 183–4, 222–3, see also Africa; Asia; South Africa Dewey, J. 187 Didou Aupetit, S., and Jokivirta, L. 220 Dines, E. 123 discourse: and public sphere 12–13 Dobbie, D., and Robinson, I. 208, 209 DOE (Department of Education), South Africa 125, 141–2, 145, 146 Dolenec, D. 219 Dong Xiaoping 21 Donoghue, F. 197, 209 Douglass, J. A. 181 DREAM (Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minor) Act 181 Duggan, L. 199 e-universities 20 Earth: and planetary citizenship 192 East Asia: public policies in 66–7, 69, 71–3 Eastern Finland, University of 108 economic crises, effect on academia 179–93; Freirean generative themes 186–93; globalization and neoliberalism 179–80; historical implications of 182–5; and investment in public/private HE in Mexico 222–3, 229; politics, economics and HE in California 180–2; the WSF, corporate capitalism and neoliberal ideology 185–6 economic justice: definition of 187–8 economy: Angolan 162; economic market and public/private

good(s) 11–12, 19–20; entrepreneurialization trends in Mexican private HEIs 231–7; Finnish recession and global economy 105–8; and higher education in California 180–2; higher education as economic market 14–15, 165–6; Japanese 68, 70–1; market, resources and funding 35–6, 69, 74; neoliberal market and policies 31, 34–5, 179–80; power and authority relations in public sphere 31, 32–3, 34–5; and South African neoliberal project 143–4, see also costs; funding; international student market; resources ecopedagogy 192 education: primary and secondary in Angola 162–4; quality of, and accountability 189; quality of and effectiveness of non-tenure-track faculty 204, 207–8; quality of and privatization 221; society and democracy 187–8, see also higher education; universities educational migration 47–61; and access to public/private goods 47–8, 52–3; and international postdoctoral scholars 50–1; and international students 48–50; and neoracism 52–9, 60; summary and discussion of 59–61, see also student mobility Edwards, Michael 37 Egypt: student enrolment in 159 Ehrenberg, R. G. 33 Ehrenberg, R. G., and Zhang, L. 204, 207 elite institutions: and capital and competition 33, 36–7; and civil society 38–9; role of and support for 41; and world-class university models 87, 88–90 elite students: competition for 33, 36–7, 69–70; from postcolonial nations 167 employment terms: in Finnish national universities 106, 107–8, 108, 110, see also academic staff; labor market; non-tenure-track faculty; working conditions engineering: impact of global rankings in Japan 92–3;

Index  •  251 international students in 69, 72–3; Japanese academic performance in 75 England: monasteries in 7–8 English language: Asian academic research in 93; educational migrants skills in 58; and international student market 66, 69, 72; and transnational academic alliances 87 enrolment: in African higher education 159; in Angolan primary and secondary education 162–3; in Mexican HEIs 222, 223, 224, 226, 227, 231, 234–6, see also student numbers entrepreneurialization: trends in Mexican private HEIs 231–7, 238 equality/inequality: and educational egalitarianism in Japan 89–90; and politics of access 16–17, 21, 42, 180; race and gender in higher education 122–6, 142, see also access; gender issues; neoracism; South Africa, race and gender identity ERASMUS program 76 escuelas libres (independent colleges) 227 Estudos Gerais 167 Etzkowitz, H. 220 e-universities 20 European nation states: HEIs and corporatization of Finnish universities 101–5 European Union: and corporatization of Finnish national universities 115–17, see also Finland Evans, L. C. 202, 206 exclusion: of students in South Africa 145–6, 147, 148, see also access “faculty corp” see non-tenure-track faculty fairness: and social justice 17 fees: charges to international students 53, 108; increases in 181–2; tuition fees 36–7, 69, 148 females: race and gender identity in higher education 122–35; and student exclusion in California 180; students’ experiences of studying and working abroad 75–7 Fennomans 103–4

FIMPES (Federation of Mexican Private Higher Education Institutions) 229–30 financial sector: elite graduates in 33–4 Finkelstein, M. J., Seal, R. K., and Schuster, J. K. 200 Finkin, M. W. 206 Finland, corporatization of national universities 101–17; economic recession and global economy 105–8; higher education in 19th- and 20th-centuries 103–5; legislative change 107–8; the Universities Act 558/2009 108–11; Universities Act 558/2009, debated 111–14; discussion 115–17 Finnish language 103 FOMES (Higher Education Modernization Fund) 224 Fox, Vicente 230 Frank, R., and Cook, P. 15 Fraser, N. 27 Free Speech Movement 40 freedoms, academic 153–4, 187–8 Freire, P. 186 Freirean generative themes 186–93 Friedman, Benjamin 33–4, 34 Friedman, M., and Friedman, R. 32, 34, 36 FTNT (full-time non-tenure-track) 197–8, 201–2, 205–8 Funamori, M. 75 fundamentalism: higher education and economic crisis 184 funding: Angolan universities state funding 170; Chinese government sponsorship 88; economic crisis and higher education in California 180–1; and the economic market 35–6, 69, 74; for Finnish higher education 106, 108, 109; for HEIs in South Africa 142, 143, 146–7, 148, 149–51; for international students and postdocs 53, 54, 73, 91–2; and investment in developing countries 183–4; and investment in Mexican HEIs 222–6; private and public in Japan 66, 67, 68, 69, 74, 91–2; of universities in European nation-

252  •  Index states 101–2, see also costs; economy; resources Gadotti, M. 192 Gappa, J. M. 205, 206, 207 Gappa, J. M., et al. 203, 204, 206, 211 Gappa, J. M., and Leslie, D. W. 201, 203, 205, 211 García Guadilla, C., Didou Aupetit, S., and Marquis, C. 220 GEAR (Growth, Employment and Redistribution Strategy), South Africa 144 Geiger, R. L. 33, 94, 219 gender issues: discrimination in South African higher education 129–35; for educational migrants 55–6; experiences of studying and working abroad 75–7; global patterns of gender disparities in higher education 122–5, see also South Africa, race and gender identity generative themes: in higher education 186–93 geographical expansion: of Mexican private HEIs 232–5 Gernet, J. 8 Giroux, H. A. 27, 32, 149, 153–4, 175, 182, 199, 200 Giroux, H. A., and Giroux, S. S. 29, 139, 153 Glazer-Raymo, J. 123 Global 30 program 72 Global COE (Global Centers of Excellence) 72 global mobility: and neoracism 51–9, 60, see also educational migration; student mobility global networks 15–16, 22 global patterns: of gender disparities in higher education 122–5 global public goods 10–11, 22, 189–90 global public sphere 3 global rankings 83, see also rankings, Japanese universities; status rankings global research universities: access to public/private goods 47–8, 52–3, 56–61 globalization: Finnish public universities response to 105–7, 116; implications for

higher education 189; and neoliberalism 179–80, 190, 200–1; and planetarian multicultural citizenship 191–3; South African response to 139–40, 143 Goodman, R. 68 good(s), public and private 9–12, 39; individual access to 47–8, 60, 187–8; and privatization process in Mexico 220; research as 18; and self-interest 8–9, 152–4, see also private good(s); public good Gould, E. 200 Gramsci, A. 37, 170 Greene, L. S. 129 Gregory, S. 130 Habermas, Jurgen 2, 9, 12–13, 14, 21, 27, 164 Habib, Adam 148, 151 Haeger, J. D. 203 Hahnel, R. 187 Hammoud, R. S. 124 Harrison, P. 49 Harvey, D. 94 Harvey, W. B. 134 Hay, D., and Monnapula-Mapesela, M. 141 Hayek, F. A. 20, 34 HBUs (historically Black universities) 125–6, 141, 145 health care benefits: and nontenure-track faculty 204, 206–7, 210 HEEACT (Higher Education Evaluation and Accreditation Council of Taiwan) 75 hegemony: crisis of 191; in higher education 94; ideological, and beliefs 40 HEIs (higher education institutions) see higher education Held, D. 191 Held, D. et al. 115 Helsinki, University of 104 Henderson P. 181 Herbert, D., Hannam, R., and Chalmers, D. 210 hierarchies, Japanese academic 90–2 higher education: in Angola 164–74; the conditions of

Index  •  253 “public” higher education 14–17; economic crisis and higher education in California 180–2; the effects of globalization 189; HEIs in Finland 101–5; how “public” is higher education? 18–20; the impact of global models in Japan 87–93; and neoliberal project in South Africa 144–8; postsecondary institutions and power and authority relations in public sphere 31, 35–7; the privatization of public HEIs in Mexico 219–26; reinvention of, through Freirean generative themes 186–93; what is “public” in higher education? 9–14, see also academic staff; universities; names of individual countries, e.g. South Africa Higher Education Act 101 (1997) (South Africa) 141 Hill, Dave 154–5 Hirsch, F. 15 Hodgson, G. 28 Hoffer, T., Grigorian, K., and Hedberg, E. 50 Hölttä, S. 106 Holzhacker, D., Chornovian, O., Yazilitas, D., and Dayan-Ocher, K. 220 Hooks, B. 132 Horie, M. 71 Horta, H. 65, 67 Huang, F. 74 Hui, Wang 15 human capital: and public and private goods 10, 49 Humlboldtians 112–14 Hutchins, R. M. 33 HWUs (historically White universities) 125–6, 141, 145 Ibarra-Colado, E. 220 identity: national, and educational migration 52; national, and HEIs in European nation-states 102, 103–5; place-bound of universities 8–9; professional, of non-tenuretrack faculty 199, 208, 211–13, see also South Africa, race and gender identity ideological hegemony: and beliefs 40 Iiyoshi, H. 68

IMF (International Monetary Fund) 183 immigration: and student access in California 181, see also educational migration Imperial Alexander University (later University of Helsinki) 101, 103, 104 inclusion: and social justice 17 incorporación de estudios (incorporation) 227–8 India: educational migrants from 53–4, 58–9; female academic staff and global patterns of gender disparities 123 inequality see equality/inequality information, universal: as public good 10 Institute of International Education 49 institutional crisis 191 Instituto Tecnológico de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey 223, 235 Instituto Tecnológico de Estudios Superiores de Occidente 235 intellectual capital 49 intercultural relations: and educational migration 51, 55, 57–9 intercultural universities: development of in Mexico 225–6 international postdoctoral scholars: access to public/private goods 48–9, 50–1; and neoracism 51–2, 56–9 international student market 65–78; and educational migration 49, 53; in Japan 69–70, 71, 75–7, 91–2 international students: access to public/private goods 48, 49–50; definition of 84; and neoracism 52, 53–6 internationalization 65; of Japanese higher education 69–70, 71–7, 90–2 Internet: and global public space 3; and “public” higher education 16, 18 ISCED (Instituto Superior de Ciências da Educação) 167 Ishikawa, M. 91 Islamic fundamentalism: higher education and economic crisis 184

254  •  Index isolation, professional: and race and gender identity in South Africa 130–3 Jacobs, F. 203 Jansen, J. D. 145 Japan, and international student market 66, 67–78, 91–2; background to 67–70; the education model in recent history 81–2; State and government roles 70–3; students and the market 75–7; universities and academics 73–5; conclusion 78, see also rankings, Japanese universities Japanese language 67–8, 69, 71, 88 Jarmon, B. 131 JASSO (Japan Student Service Organization) 72 JBL Associates 197, 201 Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 86 Johnston, A. 160 Kahn, R. 192 Kahn, R., and Kellner, D. M. 191 Kaneko, M. 67 Kankaala, K. et al. 107 Kanter, R. M. 128, 130, 131 Karabel, J. 86, 87, 90 Kariya, T. 89 Kaul, I., Grunberg, I., and Stern, M. 10–11 Keinonen, L. et al. 112, 113 Keller, J. 40 Kempner, K. 166 Kempner, K., and Jurema, A. L. 32, 165, 170 Kerr, Clark 3, 33, 181 Kincheloe, J. L., and McLaren, P. L. 153 King, C. 85 Kingfisher, C. 199 Kirp, David 30, 36 Kirsch, Adam, 42 Klinge, M. 104 Knight, J. 220 knowledge: commodification of 186, 190–1; open-source, and status competition 16; universal, as public good 10–11, 189–90 knowledge functions 8–9, 165 knowledge goods: as public/private goods 18

knowledge workers: educational migrants as 60; and service workers 164 Koen, C., Cele, M., and Libhaber, A. 146, 147 Kolbe, L. 114 Korea: and international student market 66 Korry, E. 182 KOTA database 106 Kotecha, P., and Harman, G. 126 Kratoska, P. H. 93 Krause, E. A. 199 Labaree, D. F. 30, 33, 35 labor market: for Japanese graduates in Japan 67–9, 76; for Japanese students outside Japan 67–9; for non-Japanese graduates in Japan 71; and universities as capitalist enterprises 188, see also academic staff; non-tenure-track faculty; working conditions labor unions: and corporatization of Finnish national universities 114–16, see also unionization languages see English language; Finnish language; Japanese language Latin America: higher education and economic crisis in 183–4 Latour, B. 15 Lee, J. J. 48 Lee, J. J., and Opio T. 48 Lee, J. J., and Rice, C. 48 legislation: antidiscriminatory 134; for corporatization of Finnish national universities 107–8; for recognition of private universities in Mexico 227–30 legitimacy, crisis of 191 Lehmann, S., Jackson, A. D., and Lautrup, B. E. 93 Leiden University 75 Leslie, D. W. 206 Levidow, L. 139 Levin, J. S. 198, 200 Levy, D. C. 220 liberalism: and public good 20–1 Liiten, M. 112 literacy, adult: in Angola 163 Liu, X., and Zhang, L. 203 Liu-Farrer, G. 75 locality: and place-bound identity 8–9

Index  •  255 local–global issues 191–2 Lowen, R. S. 33 LTFT (limited-term full-time faculty), Canada 208 Luanda, Universidade de 167 Luke, A., and Luke, C. 184–5 Luke, C. 124, 129 Lukes, Steven 40 Mabokela, R. O. 123–4, 134 Mabokela, R. O., and Magubane, Z. 127, 129 Macgregor, K. 126–7 Machado dos Santos, S. 220 Madsen, J. A., and Mabokela, R. O. 127 Mail and Guardian 149, 152 Maldonado, A. 219 Maldonado-Maldonado, A., and Cantwell, B. 48 male students: experiences of studying and working abroad 75–7 management structures: in Angolan universities 169–70; of Finnish national universities 107–8, 109–11, 115–16; South African HE and research funding 151 managerialism: in higher education 188, 190–1; in South Africa 153 Mansbridge, J. 11, 27 Maphai, V. T. 131–2, 133 Marginson, S. 9, 11, 14, 15, 16, 21, 22, 27, 29, 30, 32, 35, 47–8, 49, 70, 84, 220 Marginson, S., and Considine, M. 200 Marginson, S., and Ordorika, I. 11 Marginson, S., and van der Wende, M. 65, 85 market models 34–5, 42, see also economy; international student market; labor market marketization: of higher education in Mexico 220 McClennan, S. A. 27 McCowen, T. 183 McDonough, P. M. 30 McMahon, W. 18 McPherson, M. S., and Schapiro, M. O. 206 MDGs (millennium development goals) 160, 162–3 MED (Ministério de Educação), Angola 166, 168, 171

medicine: impact of global rankings in Japan 93; Japanese academic performance in 75 mentoring: and race and gender identity in South Africa 128, 130, 131–2, 133 Metcalfe, A. S. 30 Metcalfe, A. S., and Fenwick 47 Mexico, private higher education in 219–39; entrepreneurialization trends in higher HEIs 231–7, 238; private HE in, 1970–90 221–3; private HE in, 1990s 223–6; the privatization process 219–21; and regulation of privatization 226–30; conclusion 237–9 MEXT (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology) 71, 72 migration see educational migration; immigration Ministry of Higher Education, South Africa 143 mission goods 30 MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) 19 mobility see educational migration; student mobility Moe, T. 35 Mok, K. 65 Moles Plaza, R. J. 220 Monks, J. 204 Moody, J. 134 Morrison, Toni 156 Morrow, R. A. 179–80 Morrow, R. A., and Torres, C. A. 30, 167 Mozambique 159–60 MPLA (Movimento Popular pela Libertação de Angola) 161, 162, 173, 174 multicultural citizenship 191–3 Murphy, M. 206 NAFTA (North America Free Trade Agreement) 223 Naidoo, R. 15 narratives of meaning 211, 212 National Association of Foreign Student Advisors 49 National Center for Education Statistics 204, 207 National Science Board 15 National Science Foundation 50

256  •  Index nationalism: Finnish, and cultural role of HEIs 103–4 natural sciences see science neoliberalism 15; alternatives and challenges to 186–93; and competition and self-help in Japan 90; and globalization 179–80, 190, 200–1; outcomes of and post-neoliberalism 198–201; and restructuring of Mexican HEIs 223–4; the State and higher education 31, 32–3, 34–5, see also non-tenure track faculty; South Africa, neoliberal restructuring of Higher Education neoracism 52–9, 60 Nerad, M., and Cerny, J. 50 networks: for job opportunities 53–5; and race and gender identity in higher education 128; transnational, and WSF 186; universities as global networks 15–16, 22 Nevill, S. C., and Bradburn, E. M. 197, 201 New Public Management 116 New Zealand: female academic staff and global patterns of gender disparities 123 Newman, F., Courturier, L., and Scurry, J. 220 Nigeria: student enrolment in 159 Noble, D. 220 non-tenure track faculty, and postneoliberalism 197–213; the “faculty corp” in U.S. 201–8; and the future for U.S. “faculty corp” 210–12; and outcomes of neoliberalism 198–201; the professional identity of U.S. faculty 212–13; U.S compared with other countries 208–10 Norway, university reform in 115 NRC (National Research Council) 50 NSFAS (National Student Financial Aid Scheme), South Africa 148 numbers, student see student numbers Nyman, J. 113 Nzimande, Blade 142–3 Obama, Barak 31 OECD 17, 65, 66, 85, 106 Olivas, M. A. 180

Olmos, M. A., and Torres, C. A. 179 Omar, A. H. 124 open-source knowledge: and status competition 16 Ordorika, I. 30, 220 Ordorika, I., and Pusser, B. 28, 31, 140 Osaka University 82–5, 92 part-time non-tenure-track faculty 197, 201–2, 202–5 partnerships: academic and privatesector 36 pedagogy see academic staff; nontenure-track faculty; teaching/ teachers peer reviewers, ranking exercises 84–5 Pfeffer, J., and Salancik, G. 208 Pithouse, R. 147, 154 planetarian citizenship 191–3 pluriversity knowledge 191 PMACPS (Promotion and Mutual Aid Corporation for Private Schools in Japan) 69 PNPC (National Registry of Quality Graduate Programs) 224 Pocock, B, Buchanan, J., and Campbell, I. 210 policy: for Finnish national universities 109–10; institutional, and international students and postdocs 54–5; institutional, for private universities in Mexico 231–7; institutional, and race in South Africa 133–5, 140–3, 145–7; the neoliberal market and competition 31, 34–5; public, in East Asian countries 66–7, 69, 71–3; state, in Mexico, 1970–2010 221–6 political action: definitions of 113, see also sociopolitical contexts political economy 20; and role of educational migrants 49–51; and the university as a political institution 28–37, see also educational migration political institutions: universities as 28, 32 political society: and civil society 37–8, see also democracy; sociopolitical contexts politics: of higher education 16–17

Index  •  257 polytechnic universities: development of in Mexico 225–6 Poon, T. S. 220 populace (“the public”) 28, 31–2, 38 population, Angolan 161 Portuguese colonialism 159–61 post-neoliberalism see non-tenure track faculty, and post-neoliberalism postdoctoral scholars see international postdoctoral scholars postgraduate education: and international student market 66; and State funding in South Africa 151; unionization of in U.S. 188 Postma, D. W. 192 postsecondary institutions see higher education; universities Potgieter, C., and Moleko, A. S. 127–8, 130, 131, 132 Powell, W., and Clemens, E. 11 power relations: in Angolan universities 174; balance/unbalance in 41, see also public sphere, power and authority relations in ‘pressure to prove’ 132–3 primary education, Angolan 162–3 private education sector: and economic crisis 183–4, 190; and educational policy in Mexico 222, 223, 225, 226–37, 238–9; in Japan 66, 67, 69, 74; and public sphere in Angola 165–6, 167, see also Mexico, private higher education in private good(s): and the “public” in higher education 18–20, 29–30, 34–5, 190, see also good(s), public and private PROADU (University Development Support Program) 224 professional expertise: role of 36 professional identity: of non-tenuretrack faculty 199, 208, 211–13 professional isolation: and race and gender identity in South Africa 130–3, see also academic staff PROMEP (Teacher Improvement Program) 224 PRONAE (National Education Program) 230 Prouni (Programa Universidade Para Todos) 183 providers, private 221 public (concept of) 7–23; the conditions of “public” higher

education 14–17; a democratic publicness 20–1; how “public” is higher education? 18–20; what is “public” in higher education? 9–14; conclusions 21–3 public good (singular) 9, 11–12, 189–90, 200 public good(s) see good(s), public and private public goods (plural) 9–11, 39 public higher education see public universities public intellectuals: educational migrants as 60 public policy see policy; State public sphere: and Angolan higher education 165–6, 167, 172–4; higher education as public sphere 167; notion of public sphere 2–3, 12–14, 164; and private education sector 165–6, 167; and social actors 37–9 public sphere, power and authority relations in 27–43; critical research and the State 29–30; forms of capital 31, 33–4; the market 31, 32–3, 34–5; mobilization of bias 39–40; the neoliberal State 31, 32–3; postsecondary institutions 31, 35–7; and social actors 37–9; conclusion – the counternarrative 40–3, see also policy; State public universities: and civil society 38–9; and corporatization of Finnish national universities 101–17; and economic crisis 183; and educational policy in Mexico 222–6, 230, 231, 235, 237–8; in Japan and East Asia 67, 69, 74, 91; and privatization of HEIs in Mexico 219–26 Pusser, B. 12, 13, 27, 30, 31, 32, 34, 35, 38, 153, 220 Pusser, B., and Marginson, S. 30, 35 Pusser, B., Slaughter, S., and Thomas, S. L. 38 Pusser, B., and Turner, S. 220 QS (Quacquarelli Symonds Limited) 83 quality: and accountability 189; and accreditation in Mexican private HEIs 234, 235–7; educational,

258  •  Index and non-tenure-track faculty 204, 207–8; educational, and privatization 221 race see neoracism; South Africa, neoliberal restructuring of Higher Education; South Africa, race and gender identity Rajagopal, I. 202, 208, 209 rankings, Japanese universities 81–95; impact of rankings on national higher education 87–93; Osaka university (case study) 82–5; positioning of 73, 74–5; world-class models 85–7; conclusion 94, see also status rankings Rantanen, J. 107 RDP (Reconstruction and Development Programme), South Africa 144 Readings, B. 200 Reagan, Ronald 181 Rees, D. I., Kumar, P., and Fisher, D. W. 209 regional systems: Mexican private HEIs 232–5 Renault, C. S. 220 research: in Angolan higher education 171–2; funding of in South Africa 151, 153–4; internationalization of 69–70; positioning of 73, 74–5; as a public/private good(s) 18; revenuegenerating 36 research assistantships: for international students 53–6, 53–9 research and development: in Finnish universities 106 research universities: global and access to public/private goods 47–8, 52–3, 56–61 researchers see international postdoctoral scholars resources: control of, and the State 31, 35–6, 69, 74; and investment in public/private HE in Mexico 222–6; limited, and academic capitalism 165–6; private, of students 56, see also costs; economy; fees; funding revenue goods 30 reviewers, ranking exercise 84 Rhoades, G. 30, 32, 36, 203, 205, 208 Rhoades, G., and Rhoads, R. A. 188 Rhoades, G., and Slaughter, S. 179 Rhoads, R. A., and Torres, C. A. 32, 186, 188, 191, 220

Rhoads, R. A., Torres, C. A., and Brewster, A. 180, 183 Rifkin, J. 164, 203 rights: of access to education 47, 187–8, 190 Rizvi, F. 184 Rizvi, F., and Lingard B. 15 Robinson, D. 208, 209, 210 Roden, Donald 89 Rodríguez Gómez, R. 220 Roemer, R. E., and Schnitz, J. E. 205–6 Rorabaugh, W. J. 40 “Route H” 90 Rudolph, F. 33, 36 RVOEs (Reconocimiento de Validez Oficial de Estudios) 228, 229, 230, 238 SADC (Southern African Development Committee) 162–3, 168 salaries: for non-tenure-track faculty 204, 209–10 Salinas, Carlos 223, 224 Samoff, J. 184 Samuelson, Paul 9, 10 Santos, José Eduardo dos 162 Saul, J. S. 143 Savage, J. D. 35, 39 Schevitz, T. 87 scholars see academic staff; international postdoctoral scholars; international students scholarships: in Angola 174; Chinese government 88; Japanese government 73 Schrag, P. 40, 180 Schugurensky, D. 30, 153, 184 Schuster, J. K., and Finkelstein, M. J. 198, 199, 205, 206, 207, 211 science: impact of global rankings in Japan 92–3; international students in 69, 72–3; Japanese academic performance in 75; South African research funding for 151 Science (journal) 50 Scott, W. R. 199–200 self-interest: and public purpose 8–9, 152–4 Sen, Amartya 10, 17, 21 Sennett, R. 198, 200–1, 210, 211, 213 Seoul National University 15

Index  •  259 SEP (Secretaría de Educación Pública [Secretariat of Public Education]) 228–9, 230 “serious criticism”, definition of 42 service workers: and knowledge workers 164 Setiadarma, M. 124 SFPs (self-funded programs) 150–1 Shaker, G. G. 202, 205, 206, 207, 211 Shamsul, A. B. 94 Shivji, Issa 155–6 Singh, J. K. S. 123, 124 Slaughter, S. 29, 30, 32, 33 Slaughter, S., and Leslie, L. L. 32, 34, 165, 179, 200, 219 Slaughter, S. and Rhoades, G. 6, 14, 29, 31, 32, 33, 36, 49, 139, 150, 160, 165, 166, 197, 198, 199, 200, 211, 220 Smith, Adam 11, 17 Smith, C. B., and Hixson, V. S. 205–6 Smith, V. 200, 201, 203, 213 Snellman, J. V. 103–4 Soares: J. A. 86, 87 social actors: and popular support for State provision 31–2; and the public sphere 37–9, 42 social democracy: education and society 187–8; and popular support for State provision 31–2; and public good 11, 21; the WSF, corporate capitalism and neoliberal ideology 185–6 social integration: and educational migration 51 social mobility: in 19th-century Finland 104; and Angolan higher education programmes 173; and competition for elite students 33, 36–7, 69–70, see also educational migration; student mobility social science research: in Asia 93 social trust model 199–200 sociopolitical contexts: in Angola 161–2, 164–5, 172–4; of entrepreneurialization in Mexican private HEIs 238; and neoliberal restructuring in South Africa 151–4; of race and gender identity in South Africa 125–6; the WSF, corporate capitalism and neoliberal ideology 185–6, see also cultural contexts Solorzano, D. 30

South Africa, neoliberal restructuring of Higher Education 139–56; the apartheid legacy 140–3; the corporate university 149–52; the cost of higher education 147–8; critical scholarship and social transformation 152–4; the neoliberal project 143–7; conclusion 154–6 South Africa, race and gender identity 121–35; discrimination – tokenism, isolation and pressure to prove 129–33; and global patterns of gender disparities 122–5; institutional initiatives and responses 133–5; in the postapartheid global era 126–8; sociopolitical contexts of 125–6 South Korea: international students in Japan 72 Southeast Asia: higher education and economic crisis 184–5 Sowter, B. 84, 85 spending see costs; economy; fees; funding; resources State: control by, and privatization 221; and critical research 29–30; HEIs and European nationstates 101–5; Japanese, and internationalization of higher education 70–3; and neoliberalism 31, 32–3, 34–5; neoliberalism and defense of democratic state 190–1; and private education sector in Mexico 222, 223, 225, 226–30; and research funding in South Africa 151; role of and support for 41, 160 Statistics South Africa 125 status: of Finnish academic staff 110–11, 114–17; of non-tenuretrack faculty 201, 202–8; social, and HEIs in 19th-century Finland 101, 104, see also females; gender issues status rankings: and “public” higher education 15, 16, 21–2, see also rankings stereotypes, cultural 52, 57–9, 124, 127–8, 131–2 Stiglitz, Joseph 10 Stromquist, N. 129, 180, 199 student mobility: and competition for elite students 33, 36–7, 69–70;

260  •  Index global, and neoracism 51–9, 60; and international market 65–6, 72; and world university rankings 86, 88–9, see also access; educational migration; international postdoctoral scholars; international students student numbers: in Africa 159, 162– 3; in Angolan higher education 171; fairness and inclusion 17; increase in, in Finnish universities 106; in Mexico 222, 223, 224, 226, 227, 231, 234–6; in South Africa 123, 125–6, 127, 145–6, 148; and university rankings 92 student protests 40, 147, 155 student-as-consumer 35 Students for a Democratic Society 21 study-abroad experiences: and educational migration 52, 53–9; of Japanese students 75–7 Sweden, university reform in 115

THES (Times Higher Education Supplement) University Rankings 74–5, 83, 84, 86 THES–QS 83, 85 tokenism 129–30 Tokyo University 91 Torres, C. A. 179, 180, 191 Torres, C. A., and Rhoads, R. A. 183–4 Torres, C. A., and Schugurensky, D. 201 Torres, C. A., and van Heertum, R. 189, 190 trade agreements: and restructuring of Mexican HEIs 223 trade unions: and neoliberal restructuring in South African 145, 155, see also unionization transnational academic alliances 87 Tremblay, K. 50 trust: and accountability 153, 199–200 tuition fees 36–7, 69, 148, see also fees Turner, C. S. V. 134 Turner, C. S. V., and Myers 128

Taiwan: international students in Japan 72 Takeuchi, Y. 89 tax: initiatives 39; reduction of tax support 36 teaching/teachers: and ecopedagogy 192; function and value of 210, 211, 212; as a public/private good(s) 19–20; quality and numbers of teachers in Angola 163, 173–4, see also academic staff; non-tenure-track faculty; working conditions technological university sector: development of in Mexico 224, 225, 238 technology: South African research funding for 151 Tecnológico de Monterrey 229, 232, 235 Teferra, D., and Altbach, P. B. 159 Teichler, U. 70 Teixeira, P. 220 territorial expansion: of private Mexican HEIs 232–5 Téta, João Sebastião 164 Thaden, E. C. 101 Thailand: higher education and economic crisis 184–5 Thelin, J. R. 202

UAN 164, 167, 168, 169, 173 UCAN (Universidade Católica de Angola) 167, 168 UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) 183 Umbach, P. D. 204, 209 UNESCO 65, 163 UNESCO–Angola 168, 171 UNICEF 161, 163 unionization: and professional identity of non-tenure track faculty 188, 209–10; and corporatization of Finnish national universities 114–16; and neoliberal restructuring in South African 145, 155 UNITA (União Nacional para Independência Total de Angola) 161, 162 United Kingdom: female academic staff and global patterns of gender disparities 123; international postdoctoral scholars in 48, 50–1, 56–9; non-tenure-track faculty and post-neoliberalism 208, 210 United States: African Americans female scholars in 127; economic crisis and higher education in 180–3; educational migration to 48, 49–51, 53–9; and international student market 66; non-tenuretrack faculty and post-neoliberalism

Index  •  261 197–208; unionization of teaching staff and graduate employees 188 universal knowledge: as public good 10, 189–90 Universidad del Valle de México 232 Universidad Iberoamericana 223 universities: effects of neoliberalism on 199–200; in Japan 67–9, 73–5, 81– 93; as public sphere 13, 28–9, 164; recently created, in Angola 167–72; self-interest and public purpose 8–9, 152–4, see also academic staff; e-universities; elite institutions; global research universities; higher education; public universities; names of individual countries, e.g. South Africa Universities Act 558/2009 (Finland) 102, 108–14 University and College Union 209 university as public sphere see public sphere, power and authority relations in university rankings see rankings, Japanese universities Ursin, J. et al. 108 US News and World Report exercise 21–2 usefulness of work 210, 211, 212 USSF (U.S. Social Forum) 185–6 Uusihakala, J., Jurema, A., and Pedium Education Consultants and Capacity Trust 163 Vabo, A. 102 Vahasalo, R. 113 Välimaa, Jussi 101, 102, 104, 105, 106, 108, 110, 111, 114 Välimaa, Jussi, and Jalkanen, H. 108 Välimaa, Jussi, and Neuvonen-Rauhala, M.-L. 107 Vally, S. 147, 152, 155 value(s): academic, and cultural anchors 200–1, 210–12; economic and moral 6 Van Heertum, R. 179 Varghese, N. V. 220 Väyrynen, R. 107 Veblen, T. 33 Vemba, S., Gomes, M., and Miguel, A. 164

Virkkunen, Henna 112, 113 vocational education sector: in Finland 106–7 webometrics 18 Weisbrod, B. A. et al. 31, 33, 34 Weisbrod, B. A., Ballou, J. P., and Asch, E. D. 30 Welch, A. P. 200 welfare state: and economic crisis in US 182–3 White universities, South Africa 125–6, 141, 145 Williams, J. J. 149 Williams, L. D. 127 Wittrock, B. 101 women see females Woods, R. L. 128, 130, 131 working abroad: experiences of Japanese students 75–7 working conditions: for academic staff in South Africa 130–3, 149; for international students and postdoctoral scholars 52, 53–9; for non-tenure-track faculty 201–8, 213; and universities as capitalist enterprises 188, see also academic staff; employment terms; labor market; non-tenure-track faculty World Bank 161, 162, 163 World Education News and Reviews 168 world university rankings 83, 85–7, 88–9, see also rankings, Japanese universities world-class universities 113–14, 116 WSF (World Social Forum) 185–6 WTO-Gats (World Trade OrganizationGeneral Agreement on Trade in Services) 14, 20 Yancy, G. 182 Yomiuri online 90 Yonezawa, A. 70, 74, 75 Yonezawa, A., Akiba, H., and Hirouchi, D. 74 Yonezawa, A., and Kim, T. 70 Yoshimoto, K. 75 Zedillo, Ernesto 223–4, 229 Zumeta, W. 50

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